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The Science of Short Fuses: Joe Palca, Flora Lichtman, ‘Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us’ at Politics & Prose
The Express: This just in: People can be irritating. But did you know that there are scientific reasons that we get annoyed? In "Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us" ($26, Wiley), NPR science correspondents Joe Palca and Flora Lichtman explain why everyday things can drive you into a homicidal rage. Custom phone numbers that have too many letters, for instance. (No, 1-800-MATTRESS. You don't leave the last "s" off for "savings." You leave it off because you are OUT OF NUMBERS.) Ahead of the authors' talk Sunday at Politics and Prose, we asked Lichtman to shed some light on a few bugaboos that drive us up the wall.
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Alcohol, Mood and Me (Not You)
Thanks in part to studies that follow subjects for a long time, psychologists are learning more about differences between people. In a new article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, the author describes how psychologists can use their data to learn about the different ways that people's minds work. Most psychology research is done by asking a big group of people the same questions at the same time.
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The Perils of Comparative Thinking
“I wept because I had no Porsche, and then I saw a man who had no BMW.” That’s an ancient proverb, slightly doctored for modern American sensibilities. The point is that, regardless of our life circumstances, we derive our happiness and our disappointment from comparisons with others’ fortunes. Indeed, the human brain seems to be perversely wired for relative judgments, even when the comparisons sabotage our well-being. Is there any way to avoid the comparison trap? It should be obvious that my successes or failures in life have nothing to do with you, nor do your troubles or good fortunes reflect on me. How can we make meaningful and helpful comparisons, while avoiding maladaptive ones?
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Taking Safety Personally
A year after the BP explosion and oil spill, those trying to find someone to blame are misguided, says psychological scientist E. Scott Geller, Alumni Distinguished professor at Virginia Tech, and author of a new paper published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Geller has spent much of his 42-year career developing interventions to keep people safe, particularly helping companies develop a culture that promotes occupational safety.
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El efecto ilusorio de los suplementos nutricionales
BBC Mundo: La mayoría de estos consumidores, tal como reveló un estudio en Estados Unidos, los toman porque "son buenos para la salud". Pero ahora una nueva investigación sobre estos productos -que incluyen uno o más ingredientes de vitaminas, minerales, hierbas o aminoácidos, solos o combinados- revela que éstos podrían estar causando más problemas que beneficios. Y no se trata de riesgos físicos directos, sino podrían estar provocando en el consumidor "una ilusión" de que se es invulnerable a los problemas de salud, afirma el doctor Wen-Bin Chiou, quien dirigió la investigación en la Universidad Nacional de Sun Yat-Sen, en Taiwán.
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Control Freaks: You’re Perfect Just The Way You Are
Forbes: Are women too controlling? A Google search returns over 20 million hits on the subject, many from men who feel that the answer is a resounding yes. But men aren’t the only ones pointing fingers. Here at ForbesWoman we’ve published pieces with titles like “Tame Your Inner Control Freak,” and a week doesn’t go by when I get self-help pitches meant to help women “learn to finally let go.” Read the whole story: Forbes
