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Spouses learn to ignore each other’s voices over time, study says
National Post: Middle-aged couples are able to tune out each other’s voices selectively so that they can pay more attention to other people, a study suggests. Husbands and wives become so familiar with one another’s pitch and sound that they become more simple to separate from background noise.
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How to Tell If You Are a Bad Employee
The Wall Street Journal: "She's a bully" and "obnoxious" are what San Francisco-based career coach Joel Garfinkle heard from employees at a Silicon Valley tech company about a colleague. The company had approached Mr. Garfinkle because its managers needed coaching help. Their best salesperson wasn't getting along with her co-workers and managers, who frequently complained about her insensitive behavior. ... The problem is that humans in general are bad at judging themselves so they may wait too long to act, says David Dunning, a professor of psychology at Cornell University who researches how people perceive their own skills and competence.
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The Inside Story On The Fear Of Holes
NPR: Trypophobia may be moving out of the urban dictionary and into the scientific literature. A recent study in the peer-review journal Psychological Science takes a first crack at explaining why some people may suffer from a fear of holes. Trypophobia may be hard to find in textbooks and diagnostic manuals, but a brief Web search will show that plenty of people appear to have it. There's even a website, trypophobia.com, that explains the problem like this: "Have you ever felt anxious when you see a hole in the road or a pot? Or are you nervous when someone will bring a cheese with lots of holes in front of you? If yes, you might have trypophobia." But why?
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In This Online Psychology Class, the Key Words Are Real Time
The New York Times: Before they took their seats in front of the camera under the warm lights of a new studio, Sam Gosling reminded his co-host, James Pennebaker, the chairman of the psychology department at the University of Texas at Austin, to run down the hall and apply his makeup. ... Introduction to Psychology was about to go live online as a synchronous massive online course. “The territory is so new here,” Mr. Gosling, a tenured professor, said the next morning.
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Study shows NFL fans get fatter after their team loses
CBS Sports: Keep a close eye on your cholesterol, Raiders fans. A new study shows that fans of losing NFL teams tend to be more obese than fans of winning teams. Via For the Win's Nate Scott, we learn of Pierre Chandon, the L'Oreal Chaired Professor of Marketing, Innovation and Creativity at INSEAD Business Schoool, and his study of NFL fans and their chunkalicious responses to defeat. “One day after a defeat, Americans eat 16 percent more saturated fat, and 10 percent more calories," Chandon writes. "But on the day after a victory of their favorite team, then it's the opposite. They eat more healthily. They eat 9 percent less saturated fat, and 5 percent fewer calories.
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Days late, dollars short
The Economist: There is a distinctive psychology of scarcity, argues Mr Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir, a psychologist at Princeton University. People’s minds work differently when they feel they lack something. And it does not greatly matter what that something is. Anyone who feels strapped for money, friends, time or calories is likely to succumb to a similar “scarcity mindset”. This mindset brings two benefits. It concentrates the mind on pressing needs. It also gives people a keener sense of the value of a dollar, minute, calorie or smile. The lonely, it turns out, are better at deciphering expressions of emotion. Likewise, the poor have a better grasp of costs.
