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The Psychology Behind Our Collective Ebola Freak-Out
Time: In Hazlehurst, Miss., parentspulled their children out of middle school last week after learning that the principal had recently visited southern Africa. At Syracuse University, a Pulitzer Prize–winning photojournalist who had planned to speak about public health crises was banned from campus after working in Liberia. An office building in Brecksville, Ohio, closed where almost 1,000 people work over fears that an employee had been exposed to Ebola. A high school in Oregon canceled a visit from nine students from Africa — even though none of them hailed from countries containing the deadly disease. Read the whole story: Time
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Some Millennials — And Their Parents — Are Slow To Cut The Cord
NPR: So your child moved back in with you after graduation, and it seems like she will never leave. Or worse, you're sending rent checks each month while she searches for jobs in the big city. You often find yourself wondering if she will ever grow up. You're concerned that your child is suffering from delayed adolescence. But research suggests there's no need to panic. Parental support during emerging adulthood does not necessarily inhibit young adults from becoming independent, experts say. This close relationship is actually beneficial to both kids and parents. Read the whole story: NPR
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Adolescence lasts longer than ever — and why that can be a good thing
The Chicago Tribune: Adolescence lasts three times longer than it used to, according to new research, which means a hormonal 10-year-old and a not-yet-launched 24-year-old are both well within the range of normal. "Adolescence has been stretched at both ends because of the early onset of puberty and the delayed transition into adulthood," says Temple University psychology professor Laurence Steinberg, whose findings are spelled out in the new book, "Age of Opportunity: Lessons From the New Science of Adolescence" (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).
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Gifts in the desert: the psychology of Burning Man
The Guardian: What happens to groups of people in harsh physical environments, away from all of the trappings of modern civilization? Tales of shipwrecks, adventurers and post-apocalyptic worlds explore this question, and usually these stories do not end well (recall the descent into anarchy and violence in Lord of the Flies). The political philosopher Thomas Hobbes warned that outside of civilized society, humans are nasty brutes who would sooner step on another’s face than share scarce resources. Burning Man is a massive weeklong public arts festival held every August in Black Rock City, Nevada.
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Can Video Games Fend Off Mental Decline?
The New York Times: “You just crashed a little bit,” Adam Gazzaley said. It was true: I’d slammed my rocket-powered surfboard into an icy riverbank. This was at Gazzaley’s San Francisco lab, in a nook cluttered with multicolored skullcaps and wires that hooked up to an E.E.G. machine. The video game I was playing wasn’t the sort typically pitched at kids or even middle-aged, Gen X gamers. Indeed, its intended users include people over 60 — because the game might just help fend off the mental decline that accompanies aging. It was awfully hard to play, even for my Call of Duty-toughened brain. Project: Evo, as the game is called, was designed to tax several mental abilities at once.
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Buy Experiences, Not Things
The Atlantic: Forty-seven percent of the time, the average mind is wandering. It wanders about a third of the time while a person is reading, talking with other people, or taking care of children. It wanders 10 percent of the time, even, during sex. And that wandering, according to psychologist Matthew Killingsworth, is not good for well-being. A mind belongs in one place. During his training at Harvard, Killingsworth compiled those numbers and built a scientific case for every cliché about living in the moment.
