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Is It True Smiling Improves Your Mood?
The Wall Street Journal: Is it true smiling improves your mood? We tackled that question as part of our “Is It True?” video series here at the Health Blog — you can see the video below. We found a wealth of information on smiling and how it can boost positive emotions. Neuropsychologist Jodi Deluca gives us a brief overview of how the body responds to smiling and laughter, while George Bonanno, author of “The Other Side of Sadness,” talks about the benefits of a spontaneous joy-filled smile. Researchers who have studied the “facial-feedback hypothesis,” which originated with Charles Darwin, say smiling can intensify a person’s pleasure.
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No Trick: Fewer Babies Born On Halloween
LiveScience: "Happy Halloween" and "Happy birthday" may not be sentiments heard very often in the same breath, according to a new study. The research finds that the number of babies born drops on Halloween day, but spikes on Valentine's Day, a day with more positive associations. Most surprisingly, the birth decrease occurred not just among moms who scheduled C-sections or induced labors; spontaneous births rose and fell along with holidays as well. The researchers aren't sure how this holiday-birthday difference comes about, but the findings suggest that moms have some control over when they'll go into labor, said study researcher Becca Levy of the Yale University School of Public Health.
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The Importance Of Mind-Wandering
Wired: It’s easy to underestimate boredom. The mental condition, after all, is defined by its lack of stimulation; it’s the mind at its most apathetic. This is why the poet Joseph Brodsky described boredom as a “psychological Sahara,” a cognitive desert “that starts right in your bedroom and spurns the horizon.” The hands of the clock seem to stop; the stream of consciousness slows to a drip. We want to be anywhere but here. However, as Brodksy also noted, boredom and its synonyms can also become a crucial tool of creativity. “Boredom is your window,” the poet declared. “Once this window opens, don’t try to shut it; on the contrary, throw it wide open.” Brodsky was right.
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Zij van Venus, hij van Mars?
De Standaard: Komen mannen en vrouwen van verschillende planeten? Wetenschappers menen van niet. Onlangs schreven psychologen nog in Science dat er geen enkele bewezen reden is om jongens en meisjes op school apart les te geven. Wie jongens en meisjes verschillend behandelt, creëert meer verschillen dan er waren.In het oktobernummer van Current Directions in Psychological Science nemen vijf psychologen van de University of Michigan dit gelijkheidsdenken dan weer mee de slaapkamer in. Ze houden een paar populaire ideeën over verschillen tussen man en vrouw kritisch tegen het licht. Read the whole story: De Standaard
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How rude: When politeness backfires
Canada.com: Dr. Aidan Feeney has a few thoughts about politeness. Essentially, he thinks it has the ability to cost lives. "The more serious the situation, the more likely you are to be polite and the more room there is for confusion," says Feeney, a professor at the school of psychology at Queen's University, Belfast, and co-author of a new paper entitled "The Risk of Polite Misunderstanding," published last week by the Association of Psychological Science.
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Lectures from The Floating University
The Wall Street Journal: Last month, we hosted a few videos from The Floating University, which creates multimedia curricula on inter-disciplinary topics. Here, links to several more: Saul Levmore, William B. Graham Distinguished Professor of Law at The University of Chicago, explains what economists are good for, and why they weren’t good at predicting 2008′s financial crisis. Paul Bloom, the Suzanne Ragen Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Yale University, discusses female choosiness and corresponding male traits across species, and includes a surprising study about pornography preferences in Macaques.
