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What Is Social Anxiety?
The Atlantic: People today might not actually be avoiding social interaction any more than they did in past decades, but they’re certainly more vocal about it. The rise of digital communication seems to be spawning a nation of indoor cats, all humble-bragging about how introverted they are and ordering their rides and groceries without ever talking to a human. Sometimes reclusiveness can be a sign of something more serious, though. Social anxiety is one of the most common mental illnesses, but it’s still poorly understood outside of scientific circles. The good news is that it’s highly treatable, according to Stefan G.
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How Salad Can Make Us Fat
The New York Times: WHEN marketing researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School rigged shopping carts at a major East Coast supermarket with motion-tracking radio-frequency tags, they unwittingly stumbled on a metaphor for our path through the aisles of life. Route data from more than 1,000 shoppers, matched to their purchases at checkout, revealed a clear pattern: Drop a bunch of kale into your cart and you’re more likely to head next to the ice cream or beer section. The more “virtuous” products you have in your basket, the stronger your temptation to succumb to vice. ...
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The Life Scientific
BBC Radio 4: Professor Robert Plomin talks to Jim Al-Khalili about what makes some people smarter than others and why he's fed up with the genetics of intelligence being ignored. Born and raised in Chicago, Robert sat countless intelligence tests at his inner city Catholic school. College was an attractive option mainly because it seemed to pay well. Now he's one of the most cited psychologists in the world. He specialized in behavioural genetics in the mid seventies when the focus in mainstream psychology was very much on our nurture rather than our nature, and genetics was virtually taboo. Read the whole story: BBC Radio 4
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This Is Why You Feel So Sad on Sunday (and How to Fix It)
Real Simple: Even after the best of weekends (or especially after the best of weekends), there’s a cloud that descends. Chances are, you’ve felt it. In a 2013 poll from the career site Monster.com, 81 percent of American respondents said they get Sunday-night blues—and 59 percent said they experience them “really bad.” As laid-back “weekend you” begins to morph into uptight “weekday you,” anxiety over anticipating an overflowing in-box, the drudgery of packing school lunches, and the tyranny of a mile-long to-do list sets in. ... Homework is yet another Sunday downer. Nagging kids to hit the books creates an angst-filled evening.
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People Don’t Actually Want Equality
The Atlantic: People might be troubled by what they see as unjust causes of economic inequality, a perfectly reasonable concern given how much your income and wealth are determined by accidents of birth, including how much money your parents had, your sex, and the color of your skin. We are troubled as well by potential consequences of economic inequality. We may think it corrodes democracy, or increases crime, or diminishes overall happiness. Most of all, people worry about poverty—not that some have less, but rather “that those with less have too little.” ... The primatologist Frans de Waal sums up a popular view when he writes: “Robin Hood had it right.
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Clinical Psychological Science: Rethinking Suicide Surveillance: Google Search Data and Self-Reported Suicidality Differentially Estimate Completed Suicide Risk Christine Ma-Kellams, Flora Or, Ji Hyun Baek, and Ichiro Kawachi Google search information is increasingly used by researchers to study public health behavior, but how do data collected from Google compare with more traditional measures of health? The researchers analyzed suicide-related search terms entered into Google between 2008 and 2009 from all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, comparing them with questions related to suicidal thoughts and behaviors taken from the U.S.
