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Income Disparities May Be Making Americans Unhappy
U.S. News and World Report: THURSDAY, June 16 -- The growing gap between the richest Americans and everyone else is making many people with middle and low incomes unhappy, researchers have found. "Income disparity has grown a lot in the U.S., especially since the 1980s," study author Shigehiro Oishi, a psychologist at the University of Virginia, said in news release from the Association for Psychological Science. "With that, we've seen a marked drop in life satisfaction and happiness" among the 60 percent of Americans with low- and middle-class incomes, Oishi noted. Read the whole story: U.S. News and World Report
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To Feel Full Faster, Pretend You’re Eating Junk Food
LiveScience: WASHINGTON — Brainpower is more important in dieting than scientists realized — not just in battling cravings but in physically changing the body's reaction to the intake of food, according to a new study. Whether or not we consider a food to be healthy has a big impact on a protein our bodies release to control metabolism and appetite, a researcher discovered. Participants who thought they were drinking a calorie-packed shake showed much greater and quicker spikes in a gut hormone, making them feel full faster, than those who were drinking what they thought was something healthier.
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Power Players
Slate: Anthony Weiner's extramarital sexting, Arnold Schwarzenegger's love child, and the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal has led to a lot of handwringing about the prevalence of philandering among politicians and to speculation about why politicians risk their families and their careers to cheat. Is it possible that politicians are more prone to infidelity than the rest of us? Read more: Slate
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The U.S. Open and the Vagaries of Spatial Perception
The Huffington Post: When the world's finest golfers descend on Maryland's Congressional Country Club for the 111th U.S. Open, there will be no hands-down favorite for the crowds to follow. Bubba Watson will bring his monstrous drives, K. J. Choi his intense focus and Luke Donald his consistency. Veterans Ernie Els and Phil Mickelson will have experience on their side, and Graeme McDowell his status as defending champion. That's the great thing about golf. Golfers may have different strengths, but at the end of the day, each of them faces an identical challenge: putting a sphere measuring 42.67 millimeters in diameter into a hole measuring 108 millimeters in diameter. Or do they?
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Money leads to autonomy but it does not add to well-being or happiness.
TIME: Fischer and Boer, who are based in New Zealand, have authored a new study called “What Is More Important for National Well-Being: Money or Autonomy? A Meta-Analysis of Well-Being, Burnout and Anxiety Across 63 Societies.” Their research indicates that it’s freedom—not necessarily money—that leads to happier, more satisfied lives. They write: Read more: TIME
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Knight Named New Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences Editor
The Gerontological Society of America: The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) — the country’s largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to the field of aging — has named Bob G. Knight, PhD, of the University of Southern California as the next editor of the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, effective January 2012. “We are very pleased to have Dr. Knight assume the position of editor,” said Thomas Hess, PhD, chair of GSA’s Publications Committee. “He is a well-respected gerontological researcher who has an appreciation for the diversity of both the approaches and topics associated with the study of psychological aspects of the aging process.
