-
Decaying Neighborhoods Linked to Premature Births
LiveScience: Women who live in neighborhoods blighted by dilapidated buildings and other signs of decay are more likely to have premature or low-birth-weight babies, a new study finds. It's not yet known what physiological thread, or other factor, links urban blight with unhealthy pregnancies, but researchers report in the December issue of Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology that the link is strongest among blacks, a group that has 1.5 times the risk of preterm births than whites.
-
The Ability to Love Takes Root in Earliest Infancy
The ability to trust, love, and resolve conflict with loved ones starts in childhood—way earlier than you may think. That is one message of a new review of the literature in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science. “Your interpersonal experiences with your mother during the first 12 to 18 months of life predict your behavior in romantic relationships 20 years later,” says psychologist Jeffry A. Simpson, the author, with University of Minnesota colleagues W. Andrew Collins and Jessica E. Salvatore.
-
If You Can’t Notice a Gorilla in Plain Sight, How Can You Testify as a Witness?
Discover Magazine: Late one January night in 1995, Boston police officer Kenny Conley ran right past the site of a brutal beating without doing a thing about it. The case received extensive media coverage because the victim was an undercover police officer and the aggressors were other cops. Conley steadfastly refused to admit having seen anything, and he was tried and convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. Prosecutors, jurors, and judges took Conley’s denial to reflect an unwillingness to testify against other cops, a lie by omission. How could you run right past something as dramatic as a violent attack without seeing it?
-
How to Keep Your Resolutions All Year!
Self Magazine: You think: "I need others to push me to… [fill in the blank]." Asking people for support is smart, but to make your resolution stick, now is the time to learn how to be your own cheerleader. In fact, relying too heavily on a pal or family member to get you to do something can actually decrease your motivation to work toward your goals, a study in Psychological Science finds. Your boyfriend might be great at getting you out of bed for your morning jog, but what happens when he's out of town? Without any motivation to hit the treadmill on your own, you and the snooze button will become BFFs.
-
How We Assign Blame for Corporate Crimes
msnbc: Whether the public blames Wall Street or its bankers for bad decisions depends a lot on the group's level of cohesion as well as its mindfulness, or ability to "think," suggests a new study. The researchers wanted to find out how people choose to blame large collectives, such as a major corporation, political party , governmental entity, professional sports team or other organization, while still treating members of those groups as unique individuals. They found that the more people judge a united group as having a "mind"— the ability to think, intend or plan — the less they judge each member as having their own capacity to complete acts requiring such a mind. The opposite also held.
-
Down in the dumps? You should be more patriotic! People happiest when they feel like they ‘belong’ to a country
Daily Mail: Feeling proud to be British makes you feel good about life in general, according to scientists. They found that the kind of pride that makes people happiest is when they feel they ‘belong’ to a country, regardless of ethnicity. Researchers studied interviews of 41,000 residents of 31 European nations and found civic pride was most linked to a general feeling of well being. This is often because those who felt a country’s laws, traditions and institutions made them feel they belonged often had a better quality of life overall. The study was conducted jointly by political scientists and sociologists at Washington’s American University and Belgium’s Catholic University.
