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Too Soon? Too Late? Psychological Distance Matters When It Comes to Humor
Research has pinpointed a sweet spot in comedy – you have to get the right mix between how bad something is and how distant it is to garner laughs rather than boos.
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The Retirement Game
Retirement is an odd notion when you think of it, and a modern one in the scheme of human history. For our ancestors, the idea that you had earned enough money for one lifetime, that it was okay to stop working and enjoy the fruits of your labor—would have been incomprehensible. Indeed, until quite recently the deal was: You worked, you used what you had earned, and then you worked some more. Then you died. This is still true for way too many of the world’s people, who continue to live hand to mouth. But there are also many more people—and a growing number every year—who don’t really have to work anymore, but do, who forgo the leisure of their golden years to earn yet more money.
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Social Psychologists Espouse Tolerance and Diversity – Do They Walk the Walk?
Every ten years or so, someone will make the observation that there is a lack of political diversity among psychological scientists and a discussion about what ought to be done ensues. The notion that the field discriminates against and is skewed toward a liberal political perspective is worthy of concern; scholars, both within and outside the field, have offered various solutions to this diversity problem. As psychological scientists Yoel Inbar and Joris Lammers point out, however, we have few of the relevant facts necessary to understand and address the issue.
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‘I Knew It All Along…Didn’t I?’ – Understanding Hindsight Bias
The fourth-quarter comeback to win the game. The tumor that appeared on a second scan. The guy in accounting who was secretly embezzling company funds. The situation may be different each time, but we hear ourselves say it over and over again: “I knew it all along.” The problem is that too often we actually didn’t know it all along, we only feel as though we did. The phenomenon, which researchers refer to as "hindsight bias," is one of the most widely studied decision traps and has been documented in various domains, including medical diagnoses, accounting and auditing decisions, athletic competition, and political strategy.
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Storm psychology: Why do some people stay behind?
NBC: It’s the question so many of us have while watching news coverage of a hurricane or tropical storm like Isaac: Who are these people who don’t leave home even as an angry storm is advancing – and what are they thinking?! The short answer: For some, the up-and-leaving idea isn’t as easy as it sounds to those of us watching from a safe and dry distance. Actually, a 2009 article published in the journal Psychological Science sought to examine the reasons some people won’t evacuate, despite the urging or even mandates of city and state officials, by asking a group who would know: Hurricane Katrina survivors who weathered the storm at home.
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Timing is something
The Economist: Anyone who can get more than 6,500 academics to do one thing (except whisk them away to Hawaii for a conference) should be commended. But that was the sample size of professors for an experiment just published in Psychological Science, by Katherine Milkman of Wharton, Modupe Akinola of Columbia and Dolly Chugh of New York’s Stern school. The researchers set up an experiment in which made-up “prospective students” e-mailed 6,548 professors to set up a meeting. The researchers sought to answer a simple question: could something as small as the timing of a meeting increase discrimination against minorities and women?
