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Pro / Con: Spanking
Los Angeles Times: When your 3-year-old is throwing a tantrum in the middle of the supermarket or has poured his milk all over the floor, the urge to spank may be overwhelming. If you've ever given in to that urge, you're not alone — research shows that up to 90% of parents spank their children, at least occasionally. But does it work? And more importantly, is it harmful to kids? Once considered a fairly standard parenting practice, spanking is now opposed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Assn.
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Adversity, Trauma May Boost Mental Toughness
U.S. News & World Report: New research finds some truth in the old saying that whatever doesn't kill you will make you stronger. While extremely harrowing experiences such as being assaulted or surviving a hurricane can cause psychological damage, less drastic life challenges can help you develop psychological resilience, according to Mark Seery of the University at Buffalo. In one study, he and his colleagues found that people who suffered many traumatic events were more distressed in general, but they also found similar problems in people who had not experienced any such adversity. Read the whole story: U.S. News & World Report
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Memories of the Future
I remember my retirement like it was yesterday. As I recall it, I am still working, though not as hard as I do now. My wife and I still live in the city, where we bicycle a fair amount, and stay fit. We have a favorite coffee shop where we read the morning papers and say hello to the other regulars. We don’t play golf. In reality, I’m not even close to retirement. This is just a scenario I must have spun out at some point in the past. There are other future scenarios, but the details aren’t all that important. What’s notable is that my futures all have a peaceful and contented feel to them. They don’t include any financial or health problems, and no boredom, not for me or anyone I know.
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Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program aims to equip troops mentally
Los Angeles Times: Brig. Gen. Rhonda Cornum found out what combat stress was in the back of a pickup during the first Gulf War in 1991 when one of her Iraqi captors unzipped her flight suit and, as she lay there with two broken arms and an injured eye, sexually assaulted her. The reed-thin Army physician, whose Black Hawk helicopter had been shot down, became a symbol of everything America was worried about in sending women to war. Her successful return home — sane and not that much the worse for her ordeal — became a powerful argument for the irrelevance of gender in conditions of indiscriminate violence.
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How to function after a sleepless night
Men's Health: Every week a fresh tranche of research detailing the necessity of a solid eight hours sleep per night streams into the MH inbox. But at the end of the day (literally), getting your recommended quota of kip isn’t always possible. And sometimes, for reasons fun or foul, you can pass the whole night without a wink. So, when you need to be productive, but feel like a particularly decrepit zombie, what can you do to fire up your synapses and wring the best from your exhausted body? We have a remedy for every consequence of your stare-off with the sandman… Read the whole story: Men's Health
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To children (but not adults) a rose by any other name is still a rose
Two vital parts of mentally organizing the world are classification, or the understanding that similar things belong in the same category; and induction, an educated guess about a thing’s properties if it’s in a certain category. There are reasons to believe that language greatly assists adults in both kinds of tasks. But how do young children use language to make sense of the things around them? It’s a longstanding debate among psychologists. A new study in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, challenges the predominant answer.
