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Narrative Identity 101
Public Radio International: So if our identities are just stories... what does that mean for our lives, our memories, our mental health? Jonathan Adler is a psychologist who studies narrative identity. He tells Jim Fleming that his research found that our sense of well-being is based on the tone of our internal narratives rather than the stories themselves. Listen to the story: Public Radio International
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Wird man beim Bund zum Mann?
bild der wissenschaft: Das Militär prägt die Persönlichkeit – und umgekehrt "Die Bundeswehr lässt junge Kerle zu echten Männern reifen" – dieser Ausspruch hat offenbar einen wahren Kern, zumindest wenn man "Männlichkeit" auf der Basis traditioneller Rollenerwartungen definiert. Denn laut einer Studie unter Beteiligung von Wissenschaftlern der Universität Tübingen beeinflusst der Wehrdienst in substanzieller Weise, wie verträglich sie im Umgang mit anderen Personen sind. Charakterliche Veränderungen nachzuvollziehen, ist äußerst kompliziert.
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The search engine for love
The Sydney Morning Herald: It's easy to play Cupid when both parties are motivated to find love, writes Nicky Phillips. In the winter of 1959, two Stanford University students used the institution's room-size IBM 650 to build a computer program that paired 49 young men, mainly classmates, with 49 local women. Prospective couples answered 30 questions including their age, religion, hobbies and number of children wished for in marriage. The results were fed into the computer which, after nine hours of processing, selected pairs based on the similarity of the responses. The first attempt at computer dating was launched.
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How to Get the Rich to Share the Marbles
The New York Times: Suppose scientists discovered a clump of neurons in the brain that, when stimulated, turned people into egalitarians. This would be good news for Democratic strategists and speechwriters, who could now get to work framing arguments about wealth and taxation in ways that might activate the relevant section of cerebral cortex. This “share-the-spoils” button has been discovered, in a sense, but it may turn out to be harder to press than Democrats might think. Pretend you’re a three-year-old, exploring an exciting new room full of toys.
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Brain scans in infants shed light on autism onset
CNN: New research provides evidence that wiring in the brains of children with autism differs from typically developing children as early as six months of age, according to a study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry on Friday. "This is the earliest study of brain development using neuro-imaging," says Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D.
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Girls’ Verbal Skills Make Them Better At Arithmetic
While boys generally do better than girls in science and math, some studies have found that girls do better in arithmetic. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that the advantage comes from girls’ superior verbal skills. “People have always thought that males’ advantage is in math and spatial skills, and girls’ advantage is in language,” says Xinlin Zhou of Beijing Normal University, who cowrote the study with Wei Wei, Hao Lu, Hui Zhao, and Qi Dong of Beijing Normal University and Chuansheng Chen of the University of California-Irvine.
