-
Keep your cool with wrong hand
Yahoo! India: People who find it difficult to rein in their aggression and yell at others even for silly mistakes can benefit by simply using the wrong hand in daily life and thereby practice self control, suggests a study. According to Thomas Denson of the University of New South Wales, right handers should get into the habit of using a computer mouse, stirring a cup of coffee or opening a door with their left hand and left-handers should do the opposite, the Daily Mail reported. Training yourself to use the wrong hand seems to act as practice for other kinds of self control, such as being polite. Just two weeks of the exercises reduce the tendency to act on impulse, he says.
-
Women react to Rush’s apology: Not accepted?
msnbc: The outcry over Rush Limbaugh calling birth control activist Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute,” seems to have worked. Several days after his attempt to slut-shame the Georgetown University law student, Limbaugh issued a rare apology on his website, saying "in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize." Janet Hyde, the Helen Thompson Woolley Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, says such name-calling “is a method for exerting power and control over women.” Read the whole story: msnbc See Janet Hyde at the 24th APS Annual Convention
-
Can’t Help Myself
The New York Times: Human consciousness, that wonderful ability to reflect, ponder and choose, is our greatest evolutionary achievement. But it is possible to have too much of a good thing, and fortunately we also have the ability to operate on automatic pilot, performing complex behaviors without any conscious thought at all. One way this happens is with lots of practice. Tasks that seem impossibly complex at first, like learning how to play the guitar, speak a foreign language or operate a new DVD player, become second nature after we perform those actions many times (well, maybe not the DVD player).
-
Suppressing Feelings of Compassion Makes People Feel Less Moral
It’s normal to not always act on your sense of compassion—for example, by walking past a beggar on the street without giving them any money. Maybe you want to save your money or avoid engaging with a homeless person. But even if suppressing compassion avoids these costs, it may carry a personal cost of its own, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. After people suppress compassionate feelings, an experiment shows, they lose a bit of their commitment to morality. Normally, people assume that ignoring their compassionate feeling doesn’t have any cost—that you can just suppress your sympathy and walk on.
-
Personality Can Change Over Time, Study Suggests
The Huffington Post: According to a new study, grouches don't necessarily remain grouches for the rest of their lives. Findings published in the journal Social Indicators Research suggest that people's personalities can change over time just as much as external factors like change in jobs or income, or marriage or divorce. The researchers, of the University of Manchester's School of Psychological Sciences, said that the findings indicate we can increase our well-being not just through these actual external changes, but also through changes in our personalities.
-
Partnersuche: Amor ist online
ORF: Onlinedatings werden immer beliebter. Mittlerweile lernen knapp 25 Prozent aller US-Amerikaner ihre Partner über das Internet kennen, wie eine Überblicksstudie zeigt. In Europa verläuft der Trend ähnlich. "Onlinedating hat den Mainstream erreicht. Und es verliert zusehends das soziale Stigma, mit dem es einst versehen war", schreiben Forscher um Harry Reis im Fachblatt "Psychological Science in the Public Interest". Der Psychologe von der University of Rochester hat mit seinen Kollegen mehr als 400 einschlägige Studien ausgewertet, sie zeichnen ein Bild des gesellschaftlichen Umbruchs. Read the whole story: ORF See Harry Reis at the 24th APS Annual Convention
