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Math Anxiety Gets Fresh Look, Different Twist in New Research
Education Week: Considerable research suggests that girls are more anxious about math than boys, but a new study dives deeper to distinguish the general anxiety young people report about the subject from what they may be feeling in math class or at test time. It turns out the latter, "real-time" anxiety is about the same for boys and girls, the study finds. Math anxiety among females has long been of concern because, as the new research points out, prior studies have shown that it "negatively predicts" course enrollment, career choices, and lifelong learning in math fields. This is also connected to the worrisome underrepresentation of females in STEM fields.
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Fear of Holes May Stem From Evolutionary Survival Response
For those with trypophobia, the sight of clusters of holes in various formations can cause intensely unpleasant visceral reactions.
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Sports Fans Tend To Eat More Saturated Fat, Sugar After A Big Loss
The Huffington Post: A tub of ice cream doesn't just help numb the pain after a bad break-up -- it also seems to be what we turn to after our favorite team loses the big game, according to a new study. Researchers from the INSEAD Business School found that fans of a losing NFL team tend to eat more saturated fat and sugar the Monday after the game, compared with fans of the winning team. For the study, published in the journal Psychological Science, researchers looked at data on food consumption in more than two dozen cities. They examined food consumption habits on typical Mondays, and the Mondays after NFL games (for those cities with NFL teams) that took place over the weekends.
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In Fantasy Football, More Is More
The New York Times: Fantasy footballers’ search for psychological comfort has a distinct ring to it. It sounds a little something like this: “I’ll never draft Player X.” ... We don’t like choices. We like certainty. We yearn for it, in fact, and we’ll do any manner of mental gymnastics to achieve some level of certainty in our decisions, even if our justifications are illogical. But this reach for certainty – for psychological comfort – can damage your fake football squad. Writing off fantasy commodities without good reason is a hallmark of the loser’s mind-set. And it’s far from rare.
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The Science of Trusting: How Can You Get Some to Trust You?
The Huffington Post: When Joshua Prager was 19, he was an accomplished athlete, and proud of his well-trained physique. His young life was full of promise. That was before an out-of-control truck driver, carrying a four-ton load, crashed into his mini-van and left him a hemiplegic. Following 21 years of difficult recovery, Prager, a writer and journalist, decided to return to Israel to seek out the man, Abed, who had changed his life forever. His moving and popular TEDTalk tells the story of that meeting, and raises complicated questions about human trust and forgiveness. ...
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Memory weakens but steadies with age, study finds
BBC: Older people were more consistent in memory tests, research from Germany shows - although younger people did achieve overall higher test scores. The assessments were carried out in Berlin on 100 older people - aged between 65 and 80 - and 100 people in their 20s. They had to show up at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin for 100 days of tests. "We were very nice to them and had a good atmosphere at the labs," says Prof Florian Schmiedek. ... Prof Schmiedek whose research was published in the journal Psychological Science, was surprised by the difference between the two groups.
