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Do sweeteners boost self-control?
The Boston Globe: Self-control is generally thought to be a limited resource; studies have shown that it’s depleted by exertion, like muscle power. But a team of researchers is challenging the “energy model” of self-control: In new research, they found no evidence that depletion of self-control corresponded to blood sugar levels. Even more surprising, they found that simply rinsing one’s mouth with a sugar solution negated the depletion of self-control on both physical and cognitive tasks compared to rinsing one’s mouth with an artificial-sweetener solution. This was true even though subjects didn’t actually ingest the solution and couldn’t tell exactly what was in it.
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Why We Should Take Fewer Pictures of Our Children
The New York Times: “I want to look at pictures on daddy’s phone!” I can’t recall when this entreaty started. I only know it has been repeated like a mantra nearly every day by my 3-year-old daughter for as long as I remember her being able to speak in sentences. For a while I assumed her interest was centered not on our family photographs and videos themselves but on the magic of the iPhone’s touchscreen. Making images move simply by gliding your finger across a plate of glass is as close as we have come to having superpowers. It entrances adults, why not children too?
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Swimming in the Educational Gene Pool? How Far Can Children Go With the Genes They Have?
The Huffington Post: It seems so sci-fi! First there were educational toys, then educational apps and now educational genes. A recent paper published in the journal Developmental Psychology finds that there are three genes associated with academic achievement. Florida State University, Professor Kevin Beaver headed the team reporting that certain forms (alleles) of the genes DAT1, DRD2, and DRD4 predicted the level of education individuals would reach. Imagine genes in a Petri dish telling whether you were going to get your high school diploma or graduate from Harvard Law (OK, not quite that level of precision).
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Beautiful People Favor Conformity
LiveScience: Does being beautiful on the outside make you beautiful on the inside? Not necessarily, although attractive women are often thought to have more desirable personality traits in the eyes of strangers, new research shows. In actuality, beautiful women might be more likely to have some less attractive values, favoring conformity and self-promotion over independence and tolerance, the study found. Researchers from the Open University of Israel and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem recruited 118 female students to serve as "targets" in the study.
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The Competing Views on Competition
The New York Times: JUST before bedtime on a recent night, two toddlers marched reluctantly to the bathroom to brush their teeth. And on the way, my four-year-old son told his little sister: “I’m going to win. I’m going to win!” At toothbrushing. I have one of those, a child with an apparent competitive streak. When Milo and I play baseball, he tells me, “I’ll be the Yankees and you can be a team that they beat.” A recent article in this newspaper detailed President Obama’s own deep-seated desire to win. At a farewell gathering with a group of interns, the competitor-in-chief gave them some life advice: “When you all have kids, it’s important to let them win,” he said.
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Studies Link Students’ Boredom to Stress
Education Week: One glance, and any teacher knows the score: That student, halfway down the row, staring blankly at his tapping pen, fidgeting, sneaking glances at the wall clock roughly every 30 seconds, is practically screaming, "I'm bored!" While boredom is a perennial student complaint, emerging research shows it is more than students' not feeling entertained, but rather a "flavor of stress" that can interfere with their ability to learn and even their health. An international group of researchers argues this month in Perspectives on Psychological Science that the experience of boredom directly connects to a student's inability to focus attention. Read the whole story: Education Week
