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Why You Just Helped That Stranger
The Wall Street Journal: As you wait to fly out of a strange town with no plan to return, a local at the airport drops his knapsack in front of you, spilling its contents. Odds are that you will then do something that would astound a meerkat, lion or vampire bat: You will help the stranger pick up his things. ... Human beings have spent 99% of their history living in small hunter-gatherer bands. Such cultures rarely have a deity who pays attention to humans, let alone one who monitors and judges their morality, meting out rewards and punishments. When do religions tend to invent such moralizing gods? A number of researchers—such as Carlos A. Botero of Washington University in St.
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Should You Hug Your Dog?
The New York Times: The next time you want to hug a dog, consider this: You could be making the pooch miserable, an expert says. To the average dog lover, the animals’ floppy ears and pudgy paws are simply cute. But there is actual science behind their design: They are cursorial animals, which means that they have adapted to run as their first line of defense, said Stanley Coren, a psychology professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia and a dog-training expert. So when a human, however well-meaning or needy, moves in for a full-body embrace, it immobilizes the dog and increases the animal’s stress level, he wrote in a Psychology Today blog post this month.
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Ha ha HA Haha. The Sound Of Laughter Tells More Than You Think
NPR: Hear it in Rio, Kathmandu or Timbuktu — it doesn't matter. A hearty, belly laugh means the same thing on every continent: joy. But when we laugh with someone else, our chuckles may divulge more than we realize. Scientists have found that people around the world can tell whether folks are friends or strangers by listening to them laughing together. And the ability transcends culture and language. ... But the results were consistent across all the societies studied. That's a big deal, says Robert Provine, a psychologist and neuroscience at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who wasn't involved with the study.
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To reduce student suspensions, teachers should try being more empathetic
Science: School suspension rates have nearly tripled in the United States since the 1970s, rising from just 3.7% of all students in 1974 to nearly 11% in 2011. That’s a big deal because missed class means missed learning, and suspensions can predict future unemployment and even incarceration. Now, a new study suggests that even a minor attitude adjustment among teachers can have a dramatic effect on those rates: Math teachers encouraged to be more empathetic saw student suspensions drop by half. ... Psychologist Jason Okonofua, who led the new study, spent his early years attending public school in Memphis, Tennessee.
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Does More Sex Lead to a Better Relationship?
Shape: We've all got those friends who swear they're super satisfied with their relationship even though the last time they got busy was weeks ago. Well, according to a new study, they're not just B.S.-ing you—or, at least, they don't realize they are. (Psst...Ever wonder how often other people are having sex?) The frequency with which you get frisky does impact how satisfied you are with your relationship, according to new research published in the journal Psychological Science but it's not as straightforward as you might think. Read the whole story: Shape
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: Touch or Watch to Learn? Toddlers' Object Retrieval Using Contingent and Noncontingent Video Koeun Choi and Heather L. Kirkorian Although young children are typically adept at learning information in person, they often have more difficulty when the same information is presented through video demonstrations. Two-year-olds watched a hiding event in a video that afforded no contingency (the video advanced automatically), general contingency (children could touch the screen anywhere to advance the video), or specific contingency (children had to touch a specific location on the screen to advance the video).
