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The Life of Dan Wegner: A Meeting Place for Joy and Intelligence
Scientific American: Dan Wegner published his last paper here in this edition of Scientific American. It marked the end of a prolific, decades-long career in social psychology—one studded by every major award in the field, over 100 articles, seven books and an endowed professorship at Harvard University. But what the public record does not reveal is how Dan approached science and how that approach influenced his academic progeny. A mere inspection of his CV also misses why it meant so much to him that his final paper would appear here in Scientific American.
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Make Time for Awe
The Atlantic: Jason Silva is a self-described epiphany junkie. He recently enthused to me about how some movies, for example, manage to capture attention and create a complete, immersive transformation for the viewer. In his "Shots of Awe" YouTube series, Silva wants to interrupt your mundane existence with "philosophical espresso shots" designed to inspire you to live to the fullest. It’s easy to get swept away by Silva’s vision of the future: a revolutionary convergence of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence. He considers awe to be a pivotal ingredient in making ideas resonate.
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Is Affluenza a Real Condition?
Discovery News: When a lawyer argued that a 16-year-old involved in a fatal drunk-driving collision in Texas suffered from “affluenza,” or being so privileged by his rich parents that he wasn’t capable of distinguishing the consequences of bad behavior, many eyebrows were raised. ... While it’s not in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, both Plante and Arizona State University psychology professor Suniya Luthar say they recognize the behavior.
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Gaining Status with Red Sneakers
Scientific American: Early in life, we all learned that there are tangible benefits from following social rules. As a result, across organizations and industries, people make a significant effort to learn and adhere to dress codes, etiquette, and other written and unwritten codes of behavior. For example, we tend to dress up for job interviews, dates, and business meetings. If one is provided, we tend to use the presentation template provided by our company, or use the language and acronyms favored to the organization so that we can better fit in. Yet, as it turns out, deviating from the accepted dress code or social norms may have surprising status benefits.
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Missing From Science Class
The New York Times: A big reason America is falling behind other countries in science and math is that we have effectively written off a huge chunk of our population as uninterested in those fields or incapable of succeeding in them. Women make up nearly half the work force but have just 26 percent of science, technology, engineering or math jobs, according to the Census Bureau. Blacks make up 11 percent of the workforce but just 6 percent of such jobs and Hispanics make up nearly 15 percent of the work force but hold 7 percent of those positions.
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Music makes you smarter. Right? Actually, it doesn’t, Harvard study finds
The Boston Globe: True or false? Music makes you smarter. Contrary to popular belief, a study—led by a Harvard graduate student who plays the saxophone, flute, bassoon, oboe, and clarinet—found no cognitive benefits to music lessons. The finding, published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE, is bound to make arts advocates cringe, as it challenges an argument that is often used to bolster the case for music education: it’ll make kids better at math.
