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En entreprise, culpabiliser est une vertu (In business, guilt is a virtue)
Le Monde: On se sentait coupable de se sentir coupable. Cette éternelle impression que l'on aurait pu mieux faire — éviter une erreur comme d'avoir blessé quelqu'un inutilement, une gaffe, mieux se comporter vis-à-vis de nos collègues, collaborateurs, supérieurs hiérarchiques — empoisonnait doucement notre vie et celle de notre entourage. Et aussi bien à la maison, comme au bureau, où la moindre remarque était facilement mal ressentie et nous rongeait alors les entrailles. Ce qui ne facilitait guère les relations avec les tiers. Nous savions que ce sentiment n'avait pas lieu d'être.
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Order of Psychiatric Diagnoses May Influence How Clinicians Identify Symptoms
The diagnostic system used by many mental health practitioners in the United States -- known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders -- assumes that symptoms of two disorders that occur at the same time are additive and that the order in which the disorders are presented doesn’t matter. But new research suggests that order actually plays a significant role in determining how clinicians think about psychiatric disorders.
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Crash! Collisions in the Mind’s Eye
My son was involved in a serious motorcycle accident some months ago. He was driving on a major avenue in Washington, DC, going the posted speed, when a taxi pulled out from a side road, directly into his path. My son hit the brakes, but the cab was too close to avoid, so he deliberately took a spill. Both he and the bike slid under the cab, which mercifully stopped, inches before running over him. He was injured and shaken, the bike was totaled, and I was both relieved and angry. It’s not clear whether the cabbie misjudged my son’s speed or his distance from the intersection or was simply not paying attention. At the time, I didn’t much care about the particulars.
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Tight Times May Change Our Perceptions of Who ‘Belongs’
From the playground to the office, a key aspect of our social lives involves figuring out who “belongs” and who doesn’t. Our biases lead us -- whether we're aware of it or not -- to favor people who belong to our own social group. Scientists theorize that these prevalent in-group biases may give us a competitive advantage against others, especially when important resources are limited. Psychological scientist Christopher Rodeheffer and his colleagues at Texas Christian University wanted to examine whether resource scarcity might actually lead us to change our definition of who belongs to our social group.
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Playing It Too Safe?
The Wall Street Journal: The child who insists on running up the slide at the playground is doing it for a good reason. Chances are he's uninspired and trying to create more of a challenge for himself. And if the child is 9 or 10 years old, he is likely fully bored by the swings, slides and climbing gear. Some child-development experts and parents say decades of dumbed-down playgrounds, fueled by fears of litigation, concerns about injury and worrywart helicopter parents, have led to cookie-cutter equipment that offers little thrill.
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Breaking habits
The Miami Herald: You want to lose weight, but you can’t pass by the pastries and pastelitos that pop up at every desk, every cubicle, every dining room table at this time of the year. Before you go all the way, however, consider this. Research has shown that much of what we do in our lives is ultimately determined by habit. While changing those behaviors may not be a piece of cake so to speak, it may be easier than you think. In a bestselling new book, The Power of Habit (Random House, $28) , Charles Duhigg explores why we do what we do and how habits form and change. “What surprised me most was learning that any habit can be changed ... no matter how ingrained,” he said.
