-
How to Keep Your Resolutions
The New York Times: IT’S that time of year again. Maybe it’s your waistline you’re worried about, or maybe it’s the smoking habit you just can’t seem to kick. To improve your chances of keeping your New Year’s resolutions, we offer four tips inspired by recent research on behavioral economics and health. We focus on health, but our suggestions should help with other goals, too. First, make a concrete plan. When you do so, you both embed your intentions firmly in memory (which reduces forgetting) and make it harder to postpone good behavior, since doing so requires breaking an explicit commitment to yourself.
-
Want to Stop Arguing and Change Spouse’s Behavior? Start With Mirror
The Wall Street Journal: Ever want to change something about your partner? Get him or her to eat better or work less? Exercise more? Stop nagging or yelling? Start with a mirror. Your best chance of transforming someone else—and the dynamic in your relationship—is to demonstrate your willingness to alter your own actions, experts say. The good news, this kind of change isn't as hard as you think. Studies show that when a person is motivated to be in a relationship and wants it to work, he or she will readily change to be more like their partner. Often, they don't even know they are adjusting their own behavior.
-
Hyping Artificial Intelligence, Yet Again
The New Yorker: According to the Times, true artificial intelligence is just around the corner. A year ago, the paper ran a front-page story about the wonders of new technologies, including deep learning, a neurally-inspired A.I. technique for statistical analysis. Then, among others, came an article about how I.B.M.’s Watson had been repurposed into a chef, followed by an upbeat post about quantum computation. On Sunday, the paper ran a front-page story about “biologically inspired processors,” “brainlike computers” that learn from experience.
-
Lavishing Kids With Praise Can Make Them Feel Worse About Themselves
The Atlantic: "Hollywood dishes out too much praise for small things," the great actor Jimmy Stewart once said. "I won't let it get me, but too much praise can turn a fellow's head if he doesn't watch his step." He was talking about the sick power compliments can have on a person's ego: You hear enough times that you're awesome and you start to believe that you're the awesomest. And then you become insufferable. A new set of studies shows that for kids, high praise can have the opposite effect on self-esteem: It can actually make some children feel worse about themselves.
-
Long gaps during revision ‘better than cramming’
BBC: There is bad news for anyone relying on last-minute exam cramming, as psychologists publish research showing that learning is much more effective when spaced out over stretches of time. The study from Sheffield University examined how more than 850,000 people improved skills playing an online game. It showed leaving a day between practice sessions was a much better way of gaining skills than continuous play. Researcher Tom Stafford says this reflects how memories are stored. Prof Stafford, a psychologist from the University of Sheffield, was able to analyse how people around the world improved when playing the Axon computer game. Read the whole story: BBC
-
The art of praising children – and knowing when not to
The Guardian: Some parents are blessed with a soul that lights up every time their little precious brings them a carefully crafted portrait or home-made greetings card. I am not one of those parents. It is not that I don't love my kids, or that I don't appreciate the gesture. I rather like it when they come rushing up to me with a big grin squealing "Daddy, I made you a present!" But then I look down at the splodge of crayon and glue in my hand and suddenly I'm possessed by the sour spirit of Brian Sewell. Is this meant to be me? It is … how can I put this … it is rubbish. Really son, my legs do not grow straight out of the side of my oversized head.
