-
Mind vs. Body? Dualist Beliefs Linked with Less Concern for Healthy Behaviors
Many people, whether they know it or not, are philosophical dualists. That is, they believe that the brain and the mind are two separate entities. Despite the fact dualist beliefs are found in virtually all human cultures, surprisingly little is known about the impact of these beliefs on how we think and behave in everyday life. But a new research article forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that espousing a dualist philosophy can have important real-life consequences.
-
Boosting New Memories With Wakeful Resting
Too often our memory starts acting like a particularly porous sieve: all the important fragments that should be caught and preserved somehow just disappear. So armed with pencils and bolstered by caffeine, legions of adults, especially older adults, tackle crossword puzzles, acrostics, Sudoku and a host of other activities designed to strengthen their flagging memory muscles. But maybe all they really need to do to cement new learning is to sit and close their eyes for a few minutes.
-
Psychologie: Der Kompass des Bösen (Psychology: The compass of evil)
ORF Austria: Mehr als 50 Jahre ist es her, dass der US-Psychologe Stanley Milgram die Barbarei zum wissenschaftlichen Untersuchungsgegenstand erklärt hat. Forscher bieten nun eine Neuinterpretation seiner klassischen Experimente an: Grausam wird der Mensch nicht nur durch Gehorsam - sondern auch durch soziale Identifikation. "Ich habe ein einfaches Experiment an der Yale-Universität durchgeführt, um herauszufinden, wie viel Schmerz ein gewöhnlicher Mitbürger einem anderen zufügen würde, einfach weil ihn ein Wissenschaftler dazu aufforderte", notierte Stanley Milgram 1974 in einer Rückschau. Read the whole story: ORF Austria
-
Flummoxed by Failure—or Focused?
The Wall Street Journal: Many people think of intelligence as static: you are born with lots of brains, very few, or somewhere in between, and that quantum of intelligence largely determines how well you do in school and in life. The astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has never liked this view. "I hardly ever use the word intelligence," says Mr. Tyson, who directs the Hayden Planetarium in New York. "I think of people as either wanting to learn, ambivalent about learning or rejecting learning." He speaks from experience: As a young man, he was booted from one doctoral program but managed to get into another and complete his Ph.D.
-
Can You Be Addicted to Social Media?
Everyday Health: These days, you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who isn’t caught up in a world of status updates, re-tweets, followers and check-ins. Social media has certainly made it easier for people to connect with each other and share information. And with Facebook boasting more than 900 million monthly users and a record-breaking IPO, the social media space is only going to expand. The problem is, the fast-paced, instant-gratification nature of social media creates an environment where we often feel highly compelled to broadcast our thoughts and experiences to others.
-
A Climate for Conspiracy: Imaginary Plots and Global Warming
The Huffington Post: I am writing this article knowing full well that it will be used as evidence against me -- evidence that I have been duped by a powerful cabal, a vast conspiracy to... to do what? Well, take your choice. Perhaps to convince a naive public that NASA landed men on the moon? Or to hide the fact that our president is African? Or the fact that al Qaeda didn't mastermind 9/11? Or to falsely link HIV with AIDS, or smoking with lung cancer? Conspiracy theorists have sounded alarms about every one of these nefarious plots and more, and many conspiracy theorists embrace several imaginary plots. None of these claims has ever been proven.
