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Experts adding to psychology articles on Wikipedia
NewsWorks: Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anybody can edit--but have you? That's the challenge the Association for Psychological Science is posing to its members. Wikipedia is home to more than 6000 articles related to psychology, but experts say many are written by lay people, and the quality is spotty. Read the whole story: NewsWorks
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Is Happiness Overrated?
The Wall Street Journal: The relentless pursuit of happiness may be doing us more harm than good. Some researchers say happiness as people usually think of it—the experience of pleasure or positive feelings—is far less important to physical health than the type of well-being that comes from engaging in meaningful activity. Researchers refer to this latter state as "eudaimonic well-being." Happiness research, a field known as "positive psychology," is exploding.
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Everybody say ‘om’
Buffalo News: Many people see meditation as an exotic form of daydreaming, or a quick fix for a stressed-out mind. My advice to them is, try it. Meditation is difficult, at least to begin with. On my first attempt, instead of concentrating on my breathing and letting go of anything that came to mind, as instructed by my cheery Tibetan teacher, I got distracted by a string of troubled thoughts, then fell asleep. Apparently, this is normal for first-timers. Experienced meditators will assure you that it is worth persisting, however. “Training allows us to transform the mind, to overcome destructive emotions and to dispel suffering,” says Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard.
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Why kids get hit by cars
Getting hit by a car is the third leading cause of death for kids 5- to 9-years-old, and kids up to age 15 make up a disproportionate number of pedestrian casualties worldwide. It’s not hard to think of reasons for this scary statistic: Children are easily distracted and don’t always pay attention, and they are also smaller, so they’re more likely to sustain fatal injuries when they are hit. But there may be another, even more basic, reason for this childhood peril: Kids simply don’t see the cars coming. The ability to see and avoid looming objects is a fundamental skill, crucial to survival not only for humans but for most animals.
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Stress Higher in Children With Depressed Parents
Children with depressed parents get stressed out more easily than children with healthy parents—if the depressed parents are negative toward their child. That's the conclusion of a study published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The study is part of a long-term look at how a child's early temperament is related to the risk for depression. The children were recruited for the study when they were three years old, an age when depression is rare. Thus, the researchers expect to see depression appear as the children grow.
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Happy Kids Divorce More: University Of Cambridge Study
The Huffington Post: You might believe that happy kids stand a better chance of growing up into happy adults. And for the most part you'd be right--a recent study looking into the effect a happy adolescence has on adult life found that most outcomes are better for happier teens. But a startling fact also emerged: happy teens are more likely to divorce. Researchers at the University of Cambridge used data from 2,776 teens who participated in a 1946 British birth cohort study.
