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How to learn better at any age
The Boston Globe: PEOPLE COMMONLY BELIEVE that if you expose yourself to something enough times — say, a textbook passage or a set of terms from biology class — you can burn it into memory. Not so. Many teachers believe that if they can make learning easier and faster, the learning will be better. Much research turns this belief on its head: When learning is harder, it’s stronger and lasts longer. It’s widely believed by teachers, trainers, and coaches that the most effective way to master a new skill is to give it dogged, single-minded focus, practicing over and over until you’ve got it down.
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Theology, Taboos, and Creative Thinking
During the 1976 presidential campaign, then-candidate Jimmy Carter famously told Playboy magazine: “I’ve looked on many women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.” Carter’s unguarded remarks were published in the November issue, just days before the election, and they caused a broad public uproar. The campaign was already concerned about the appeal of Carter’s Southern Baptist faith, and some believed this candor would tip the balance to the Republican incumbent Gerald Ford. It didn’t. Carter went on to squeak out a victory, and became the country’s 39th president. But the Playboy interview put evangelical Christianity in the national spotlight.
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The Science of Older and Wiser
The New York Times: Since ancient times, the elusive concept of wisdom has figured prominently in philosophical and religious texts. The question remains compelling: What is wisdom, and how does it play out in individual lives? Most psychologists agree that if you define wisdom as maintaining positive well-being and kindness in the face of challenges, it is one of the most important qualities one can possess to age successfully — and to face physical decline and death. Vivian Clayton, a geriatric neuropsychologist in Orinda, Calif., developed a definition of wisdom in the 1970s, when she was a graduate student, that has served as a foundation for research on the subject ever since.
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Have a Patience Problem? Here’s a Solution
Inc.: Gratefulness and patience don't always come easily--especially in the tough, early days of a startup. However, recent research suggests that one trait might naturally boost the other, which is something you can use to your benefit the next time you're feeling antsy. According to a blog post on the Association for Psychological Science website, adopting a grateful attitude could be a tool for practicing patience. A forthcoming study, which will appear in the journal Psychological Science, looked at the impact that gratitude and happiness have on an individual's propensity to wait for an outcome.
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Parents, Wired to Distraction
The New York Times: Every age of parenthood — and parenthood at every age — yields some discouraging metric, some new rating system on which parents can be judged and found wanting. We endlessly jury family dinner rituals, day care and nannies, parents’ readiness to follow schedules, or to ignore the rules and follow their child’s directives. Whatever you are doing is probably wrong. Yes, you, yes, right now. Put down that cellphone and listen to me. In a study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, researchers observed diners in Boston-area fast food restaurants, looking at the new family configuration of adult, child and mobile device.
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How Actors Create Emotions: A Problematic Psychology
The Atlantic: Early on in her career, Deborah Margolin realized that she was a woman nobody liked, not even herself. She was a “homely person who was pregnant all the time”—not because she enjoyed sex, according to Margolin, but because of a sense of self-loathing that led her toward the same dead end, over and over again. She was married to a man but wished that she were with a woman. Or, rather, she wished that she were a woman—a different one. She wished she were Patience or Sarah, two women whom everyone around her seemed to want. Historical-fiction buffs might recognize the name Patience and Sarah as a novel set in the 19th-century adapted for stage.
