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The Data Vigilante
The Atlantic: Uri Simonsohn, a research psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, did not set out to be a vigilante. His first step down that path came two years ago, at a dinner with some fellow social psychologists in St. Louis. The pisco sours were flowing, Simonsohn recently told me, as the scholars began to indiscreetly name and shame various “crazy findings we didn’t believe.” Social psychology—the subfield of psychology devoted to how social interaction affects human thought and action—routinely produces all sorts of findings that are, if not crazy, strongly counterintuitive.
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A glimpse into why minds wander
San Francisco Chronicle: If you're the sort who gets distracted by every new, shiny thing, it may be worth your time to read this description of a new UCSF study. In a paper published online last week in the journal Clinical Psychological Science, researchers report that they have discovered a possible biological link between the wandering mind and aging. Their preliminary study concerns telomeres, the DNA caps that protect chromosomes from deteriorating or fusing with neighboring chromosomes. They typically shorten with age, often because of psychological and physiological stress, and can predict early disease and death. Read the whole story: San Francisco Chronicle
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A Recipe to Enhance Innovation
The New York Times: For America, 2012 will go down in history as the year of the Latinos, the blacks, the women and the gays. That rainbow coalition won President Barack Obama his second term. This triumph of the outsiders is partly due to America’s changing demographics. And it is not just the United States that is becoming more diverse. Canada is, too, as is much of Europe. That is why it is worth thinking hard about how to make diverse teams effective, and how people who straddle two cultural worlds can succeed.
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Ambiguity, Gangnam Style
The Wall Street Journal: A few years ago, Mike Norton, Jeana Frost and I looked at the question of ambiguity and found exactly the mechanism you're suggesting—that knowing less can lead to higher liking. Focusing on online dating, we found that when people read online profiles of potential partners that were more ambiguous and imprecise, they liked the profiles more. That's because when we face new information we try to resolve ambiguity, but rather than do it accurately, we let our minds fill in the gaps in an overly optimistic way. Sadly, we eventually meet the person behind the dating profile, and then our expectations get crushed (which, by the way, happens a bit more to women).
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Petraeus affair: Why do the powerful cheat?
USA Today: David Petraeus is not your run-of-the-mill husband with a wandering eye. He's not just another philandering politician or celebrity cheater, like so many others whose indiscretions have come to light in recent years. He's a retired Army general who designed and led the military surge in Iraq and was top commander in Afghanistan. He had been deployed much of his career until he was named CIA director last year. His abrupt resignation amid news of his extramarital affair with a married Army Reserve officer brings a new wrinkle into an old story of why yet another powerful man risks so much for a woman.
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Does Daydreaming Age You?
Prevention: Do you ever have trouble focusing your attention on—oh look! A new Facebook friend request! Wait, what were we saying? Chances are that—like us—you’re prone to a wandering mind. In fact, mind meandering takes up about half of our mental time. But a new study in Clinical Psychological Science shows that when our minds stray, our health can take a nosedive. The University of California, San Francisco study targets telomeres, the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes. In recent years, the tiny telomere has emerged as a powerful biomarker of aging. They get shorter as you get older, and shorter telomeres at any age predict the early onset of disease and mortality.
