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The Psychology of Heroism: Why Some People Leap in Front of Bullets
TIME: On Aug. 5, when a gunman drove to a Sikh temple outside Milwaukee and started shooting his 9-mm handgun, some ran and some leapt to stop him. One of the six who died was temple president Santwat Singh Kaleka, who has been hailed as a hero by witnesses who say he tried to disarm the shooter. The first cop on the scene, Brian Murphy, took nine bullets as he also tried to help. Miraculously, Murphy wasn’t killed. Why do some people confront danger while most scamper for the exits? Altruism emerges in many disasters. A few weeks ago, three women came forward to say they survived the cinema shooting in Aurora, Colo., because their boyfriends shielded them. All three men are dead.
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Quick Tip: Relieve Stress By Faking It
Men's Fitness: When it comes to smiling, “fake it until you make it” may be the best way to relieve stress, according to a new study. Smiles are highly visible signs of happiness, but researchers from the University of Kansas wanted to see whether faking a smile could improve a person's mood and help them get through a stressful situation. In the study, published in Psychological Science, participants carried out stressful tasks while holding chopsticks in their mouths. The chopsticks were meant to mimic different facial expressions—neutral, a standard smile involving just the muscles around the mouth, and a Duchenne smile using both the mouth and eye muscles.
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Reminders of Death Can Sway Political Attitudes
From one day to the next, approval ratings of political figures can plummet or soar. Psychological scientists have long been trying to identify the cognitive factors that might account for the vagaries of public opinion. Why, for example, did the approval ratings of President George W. Bush— who was perceived as indecisive before September 11, 2001—soar over 90 percent after the terrorist attacks? Research suggests that it was because Americans were acutely aware of their own deaths. The fear people felt after 9/11 was real, but it also made them ripe for psychological manipulation, experts say.
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Cleanliness Is Next to…Conservatism?
In every election cycle, politicians on both sides of the aisle are accused of practicing ‘dirty politics.’ Neither side is immune from these charges but research from psychological science suggests that we may subconsciously associate our notions of ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’ with specific political ideologies. In a research article published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researchers Erik Helzer and David Pizarro of Cornell University found that people who are reminded of physical purity report being more politically conservative and make harsher moral judgments regarding sexual behavior.
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Who’s Honoring Me Now?
The Colbert Report: Scientists from Canada and New Zealand research a little world-changing concept Stephen tossed off on his first show in 2005. Watch here: The Colbert Report
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The Lemon of Illness and the Demand for Lemonade
The Open Mind: I’m Richard Heffner, your host on The Open Mind. And it’s been a number of years since I first joined at this table in a no-holds-barred conversation with Dr. Jessie Gruman, the founder of the Center for Advancing Health, a non-profit institute designed to translate health research into effective public policy and private practice. I titled our first programs together “Rx for Health Policy and Practice”.
