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For Better Social Skills, Scientists Recommend a Little Chekhov
The New York Times: Say you are getting ready for a blind date or a job interview. What should you do? Besides shower and shave, of course, it turns out you should read — but not just anything. Something by Chekhov or Alice Munro will help you navigate new social territory better than a potboiler by Danielle Steel. That is the conclusion of a study published Thursday in the journal Science.
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Time is not money
The Economist: “The love of money”, St Paul memorably wrote to his protégé Timothy, “is the root of all evil.” “All” may be putting it a bit strongly, but dozens of psychological studies have indeed shown that people primed to think about money before an experiment are more likely to lie, cheat and steal during the course of that experiment. Another well-known aphorism, ascribed to Benjamin Franklin, is “time is money”. If true, that suggests a syllogism: that the love of time is a root of evil, too. But a paper just published in Psychological Science by Francesca Gino of Harvard and Cassie Mogilner of the University of Pennsylvania suggests precisely the opposite.
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Allenare il cervello migliora la memoria, non l’intelligenza (Brain training improves memory, not intelligence)
La Stampa: Dai videogiochi ai siti web, fino alle applicazioni del cellulare, sono migliaia i programmi per “allenare il cervello” che promettono di accrescere le performance cognitive: a quanto pare, però, mentre con il brain training è possibile imparare a memorizzare più cose, esercitarsi anche tutti i giorni non aiuta a diventare più intelligenti, almeno secondo uno studio americano pubblicato su Psychological Science. Esercitandosi è possibile dunque migliorare la “work memory capacity” (Wmc, capacità della memoria di lavoro), che è la capacità di immagazzinare informazioni o recuperarle rapidamente, soprattutto in presenza di distrazioni. Read the whole story: La Stampa
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Rich People Just Care Less
The New York Times: Turning a blind eye. Giving someone the cold shoulder. Looking down on people. Seeing right through them. These metaphors for condescending or dismissive behavior are more than just descriptive. They suggest, to a surprisingly accurate extent, the social distance between those with greater power and those with less — a distance that goes beyond the realm of interpersonal interactions and may exacerbate the soaring inequality in the United States. A growing body of recent research shows that people with the most social power pay scant attention to those with little such power.
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Does Diversity Undermine Community Trust?
The Huffington Post: One of the most conspicuous failures of the 113th Congress has been the Republican House's refusal to even discuss long-overdue immigration reform, despite the Senate's painstaking work in crafting a comprehensive bill. The Republican leadership knows that its hopelessly divided lawmakers will never come close to agreement on this contentious issue. It is a difficult issue to be sure. Our culture and our economy are based on immigration and diversity, yet newcomers have always been threatening for some.
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Five ways money can buy you happiness
The Washington Post: You have probably heard and maybe even embrace the idea that money can’t buy happiness. I’ve said so myself numerous times. But behavioral scientists and researchers Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton argue this is not exactly true. Money, if you spend it right, can buy happiness. So what’s the right way? “Shifting from buying stuff to buying experiences, and from spending on yourself to spending on others, can have a dramatic impact on happiness,” Dunn and Norton write in “Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending”. Dunn is an associate professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia.
