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A More Progressive Tax System Makes People Happier
The way some people talk, you’d think that a flat tax system—in which everyone pays at the same rate regardless of income—would make citizens feel better than more progressive taxation, where wealthier people are taxed at higher rates. Indeed, the U.S. has been diminishing progressivity of its tax structure for decades. But a new study comparing 54 nations found that flattening the tax risks flattening social wellbeing as well.
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Crunch time: how to deal with grim economic news
The Guardian: The last few weeks have been truly terrible ones for the financial markets. But that's just another way of saying they have been excellent weeks for the British blog Brokers With Hands On Their Faces, and its American cousin Sad Guys On Trading Floors, both of which exist to chronicle the news media's chronic overuse of stock pictures and video footage of stressed-looking men in blue shirts or jackets, standing in front of impossibly complex charts on plasma monitors, their hands on their foreheads, over their mouths, or under their chins, looking stricken or defeated or simply numb. Very occasionally it's not a man, and slightly less occasionally the shirt isn't blue.
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Why The Trip Home Seems To Go By Faster
NPR: In 1969, astronaut Alan Bean went to the moon as the lunar module pilot on Apollo 12. Although the trip going to the moon covered the same distance as the trip back, "returning from the moon seemed much shorter," Bean says. People will often feel a return trip took less time than the same outbound journey, even though it didn't. In the case of Apollo 12, the trip back from the moon really did take somewhat less time. But the point remains that this so-called "return trip effect" is a very real psychological phenomenon, and now a new scientific study provides an explanation.
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Sorry, But I’m Not
Hartford Courant: Gina, on behalf of all girls, you have a lot to apologize for. And you'll be good at it, because that's one of the things that girls do best. It's been confirmed. A study published in the journal Psychological Science found that girls and guys each apologize for about 80 percent of their perceived transgressions. The difference? Girls really, really find a lot to apologize for.
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Don’t Mess With Breastfeeding Women
Miller-McCune: Earlier this year, we reported that breast-feeding women are widely viewed as less competent. Newly published research suggests it would be unwise to share that unflattering opinion with them. According to a team led by UCLA health psychologist Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook, lactating women display higher levels of aggression than both non-mothers and their bottle-feeding counterparts. What’s more, their blood pressure stays low even as their combativeness increases, which may be nature’s way of allowing new mothers to calmly but effectively deal with potential threats.
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PTSD-linked gene variations found in study of NIU undergrads on campus during mass shootings
The Washington Post: A study of college students’ reactions to shootings on their Illinois campus gives fresh insight into how genes may influence the psychological impact of traumatic events. The researchers found that symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder were more common in Northern Illinois University students who had certain variations in a gene that regulates levels of serotonin, a brain chemical linked with mood that is the target of popular antidepressants. The researchers say the results could someday lead to new treatments for PTSD, and also could help predict who will develop the condition, which could be useful for soldiers involved in combat.
