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The fine art of cuddling
CBS: Los Angeles-based “hugging therapist” Steve Maher hugs his clients, and explains to Mo Rocca the difference between hugging and cuddling, because there IS a difference. Rocca also gets close to Samantha Hess, who started a Portland, Ore.-based business that touts the benefits of touch. Read the whole story: CBS
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: Mismatch or Cumulative Stress: The Pathway to Depression Is Conditional on Attention Style Esther Nederhof, Johan Ormel, and Albertine J. Oldehinkel It has been suggested that people use their childhood environment to predict how their future environment will be and develop accordingly. However, on the basis of this theory, a mismatch between a childhood and an adult environment could be detrimental. Adolescents were split into attention-style groups (shifting, sustained, or more balanced) and were assessed for early life stress, recent life stress, and major depression.
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How Gossip Serves a Greater Good
Pacific Standard: Halfway through the 1800s, someone named Cecil B. Hartley wrote a guide titled The Gentlemen’s Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness, which offers instruction on everything from conversation to dress to table manners to manly exercises. On the topic of gossip, Hartley advises readers to shun the practice outright, deeming it “detestable” in a woman and “utterly despicable” in a man. His sentiment was neither new nor dated.
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Rischio cardiovascolare se nella coppia non c’è sostegno morale (Cardiovascular risk in the pair if there is no moral support)
La Stampa: Nelle coppie di fatto spesso si litiga, non c’è solidarietà. Questa solidarietà, che dovrebbe essere reciproca, spesso però viene a mancare. In molti casi la mancanza di sostegno avviene da parte sia di lui che di lei, ma può anche capitare che sia solo uno dei due partner a non essere di sostegno all’altro, magari facendo delle pressioni psicologiche o morali per le questioni più disparate. In tutti questi casi a soffrirne non è soltanto il morale, ma anche e soprattutto il cuore, dimostrando che la salute del cuore è collegata proprio alle questioni di cuore. Rapporti problematici promuovono dunque una salute cardiovascolare altrettanto problematica.
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Mental Health on the Go
The Huffington Post: Journalist Scott Stossel was so anxious at his own wedding that he had to hold on to his new bride in order to steady himself at the altar. His clothes were by then soaked through by torrential sweat. At the birth of his first child, with his wife in the throes of labor, the nurses had to turn their attention to the expectant father, who had gone pale and keeled over. He has also had breakdowns in the middle of job interviews, dates and plane flights. Even ordinary activities like talking on the phone can trigger pervasive dread, accompanied by nausea, shaking, and vertigo. ...
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Hatred of Outsiders Kicks in Between Ages 6 and 8
Pacific Standard: At what point in our young lives do we start thinking of people who are different from us as enemies? Provocative new research from Germany suggests this problematic psychological process—which underpins racism, extreme nationalism, and prejudice of all sorts—kicks in somewhere around age seven. Love for one’s own group and hatred for perceived outsiders are separate attitudes that emerge at different stages of a child’s development, according to University of Erfurt researchers David Buttelmann and Robert Böhm. In the journal Psychological Science, they present evidence that six-year-olds show clear bias in favor of a group they belong to.
