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Imagining Dialogue Can Boost Critical Thinking
Examining an issue as a debate or dialogue between two sides helps people apply deeper, more sophisticated reasoning when thinking about that issue.
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Anger Derails Negotiations, Unless You Have a Plan
Angry negotiators can make irrational decisions that lead to lower offers, but researchers from Saarland University demonstrate that a simple self-regulation plan can help cooler heads prevail.
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Your Name Might Shape Your Face, Researchers Say
NPR: In my head, a person with the name Danny has a boyish face and a perpetual smile. Zoes have wide eyes and wild hair and an air of mild bemusement. There might actually be something to the idea that people who share a name also share a stereotypical "look" to them, researchers say. In one experiment, published Monday in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, scientists found that when people are shown a stranger's face and a choice of five names, they pick the right name about 35 percent of the time. ... It may also be that people mold their names to fit them, says Melissa Lea, a psychologist and neuroscientist at Millsaps University in Mississippi.
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Warning: Your New Digital World Is Highly Addictive
Scientific American: Science has learned many lessons about what makes something addictive. And now this knowledge is being used by the tech business to gain our attention, and keep us coming back for more. In his new book, “Irresistible,” New York University associate professor of marketing Adam Alter argues that society is experiencing the beginnings of an epidemic of “behavioral addiction,” and that this could have dangerous and far-reaching implications for us all. He answered questions from Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook. Read the whole story: Scientific American
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Are women increasingly at risk of addiction?
The Washington Post: Last year, American novelist Joyce Maynard faced a harsh realization: Her habit of reaching for a glass of wine whenever she felt stressed had crossed the line into an addiction. “It kind of crept up on me,” said Maynard, 63, whose novel about a single mother with a wine dependence, “Under the Influence,” came out in paperback in November. “The way I was drinking is the way a lot of women drink and don’t see it as any kind of problem. And for a lot of them, it may not be a problem. It wasn’t the quantity; it was the space wine occupied in my life. I could tell it was occupying an unhealthy one. I was using it increasingly as a comfort and a reliever of stress.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: When Perception Trumps Reality: Perceived, Not Objective, Meaning of Primes Drives Stroop Priming Anders Sand and Mats E. Nilsson The researchers investigated whether the perceived meaning of a stimulus, rather than the objective meaning, drives semantic congruency priming. Researchers used a Stroop priming paradigm to present participants with stimuli. A prime word, either the word "blue" or "red," was displayed in gray font for varying amounts of time. The prime was followed by a target stimulus, either a blue or a red rectangle.
