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A bit of cash can keep someone off the streets for 2 years or more
Science: If someone is about to become homeless, giving them a single cash infusion, averaging about $1000, may be enough to keep them off the streets for at least 2 years. That’s the conclusion of a new study, which finds that programs that proactively assist those in need don’t just help the victims—they may benefit society as a whole. “I think this is a really important study, and it’s really well done,” says Beth Shinn, a community psychologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville who specializes in homelessness but was not involved in the work. Read the whole story: Science
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The power of rituals
The Boston Globe: WADE BOGGS, THE Hall of Fame third baseman for the Boston Red Sox, was famous for his pregame rituals. Before each outing, he ate chicken, took batting practice at 5:17 p.m., did wind sprints at 7:17 p.m., and fielded 150 ground balls. He also wrote the Hebrew word for life (“chai”) in the dirt before going up to bat. Did these superstitions do any good? Some new research suggests they might have, and that anyone — from Olympic athletes to office workers — can benefit from the same kinds of routines. So, how does one go about testing the power of superstition?
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The Problem With Slow Motion
The New York Times: Watching slow-motion footage of an event can certainly improve our judgment of what happened. But can it also impair judgment? This question arose in the 2009 murder trial of a man named John Lewis, who killed a police officer during an armed robbery of a Dunkin’ Donuts in Philadelphia. Mr. Lewis pleaded guilty; the only question for the jury was whether the murder resulted from a “willful, deliberate and premeditated” intent to kill or — as Mr. Lewis argued — from a spontaneous, panicked reaction to seeing the officer enter the store unexpectedly. The key piece of evidence was a surveillance video of the shooting, which the jury saw both in real time and in slow motion.
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These Are the Best Songs to Wake Up to in the Morning According to a Psychologist
TIME: Music streaming service Spotify is here to help us make our lives easier. Step one: get out of bed, thanks to the right tunes. Spotify partnered with psychology PhD candidate David M. Greenberg to put together the perfect playlist for waking up in the morning. The 20-song list kicks off with Coldplay’s uplifting “Viva La Vida,” and also includes timeless jams like Bill Withers’s “Lovely Day,” and the very literal “Wake Me Up” by Avicii. The secret to getting you out of bed, according to the service? Read the whole story: TIME
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Why all the practice in the world can’t turn you into an Olympian
The Washington Post: Practice makes perfect. It’s a mantra we hear all our lives, from simple refrains in kindergarten to the more nuanced versions that populate self-help books. It’s everywhere at this year’s Olympic Games in Rio, as athletes credit the long hours they spent working with coaches and trainers for their success. It leads us to believe there’s a chance that each of us could be an Olympian, a concert pianist, or an expert computer programmer — if only we put the work in. In popular culture, this idea was probably best publicized as Malcolm Gladwell’s “10,000-hour rule,” which says that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at any skill.
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Babies’ Spatial Reasoning Predicts Later Math Skills
Spatial reasoning measured in infancy predicts how children do at math at four years of age, according to findings from a longitudinal study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. “We’ve provided the earliest documented evidence for a relationship between spatial reasoning and math ability,” says Emory University psychological scientist Stella Lourenco, whose lab conducted the research. “We’ve shown that spatial reasoning beginning early in life, as young as six months of age, predicts both the continuity of this ability and mathematical development.” Emory graduate student Jillian Lauer is co-author of the study.
