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Irrational Optimism: ‘On Any Given Sunday’
I have been part of a family football pool for many years now. Every week, each of us predicts the winners for every NFL game, right through the playoffs, and everyone's performance is posted in a running tally. In recent years, I have been one of the very worst players in this pool, but I have a good excuse. I am a longtime Washington Redskins fan, and I pick the 'Skins week in and week out. Other family members hail from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia and Indianapolis, and they also tend to bet on their home teams. The difference is that those teams are all good -- and the 'Skins are not. In fact, they're been awful for many years now. So I'm in effect giving away points every week.
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Driving Simulators Help Older Adults Improve Their Road Skills
Older drivers could benefit from training programs that put them behind the wheel—in a driving simulator, with an observer who helps them develop their skills. That's the conclusion of a new article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Older people are at much higher risk of car crashes than younger drivers. Some states and provinces test older drivers, hoping to get the riskiest drivers off the road. But the tests they use are inadequate, says Normand Teasdale of Université Laval in Québec, who cowrote the study with Pierre-Luc Gamache, Carol Hudon, and Martin Simoneau.
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People Neglect Who They Really Are When Predicting Their Own Future Happiness
Humans are notoriously bad at predicting their future happiness. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that part of the reason for these mispredictions lies in failing to recognize the key role played by one’s own personality when determining future emotional reactions. The new evidence comes from Jordi Quoidbach, a psychological scientist at the University of Liege, Belgium. Quoidbach and Elizabeth Dunn, his collaborator at the University of British Columbia, found that our natural sunny or negative dispositions might be a more powerful predictor of future happiness than any specific event.
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‘Vive la Difference!’: Seeing Foreigners as Foreign Encourages Local Coworkers to Assist Them
Examining companies with local and ex-pat employees, researchers find that recognizing diversity can actually encourage people to help each other instead of sparking conflict.
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Our Perceptions of Masculinity and Femininity Are Swayed by Our Sense of Touch
Gender stereotypes suggest that men are usually tough and women are usually tender. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds these stereotypes have some real bodily truth for our brains; when people look at a gender-neutral face, they are more likely to judge it as male if they're touching something hard and as female if they're touching something soft. Several studies have found recently that we understand many concepts through our bodies. For example, weight conveys importance; just giving someone a heavy clipboard to hold will make them judge something as more important than someone who holds a light clipboard.
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Nostalgia for young adulthood? Rethinking the ‘reminiscence bump’
Some years ago, I found myself sitting out a blinding snow storm in a diner on a rural Maryland highway. It was bitterly cold outside, so I ordered soup and coffee and sat on a stool at the counter. I was the only customer for more than an hour, so I struck up a conversation with the fellow working there. He was in his early 40s, I'd guess. He was friendly and did most of the talking, telling me about his high school days. His school was just a couple miles down the road. He had been an All-State linebacker on his championship team, and ran track as well.
