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A New Way to Remember: The Power of Quirky Memory Jogs
Scientific American: Organizations spend millions of dollars each year trying to get their employees to be less absentminded. Businesses shell out significant funds for planning software and systems. Administrators tack up signs and send out emails reminding employees to fill out their timesheets, enroll in benefits programs, or prepare for meetings. And of course, individuals personally wrestle with overcoming forgetfulness. We have found that some of the costly digital and paper memory jogs widely used to solve the problem of forgetting could instead be replaced with a stuffed alien toy. Perhaps some explanation is in order.
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The Secret to Living a Meaningful Life
BBC: Brian Little, one of the world’s leading experts on personality psychology, is renowned as a public speaker. If you watch his recent TED talk on personality, as millions of others have, you will see an engaging and witty orator holding his audience’s attention with aplomb. You’d probably conclude that Little is an extravert: he’s not only good at what he’s doing, but he seems to be revelling in the opportunity. In fact, Little is a self-proclaimed introvert. After his talk you would quite likely find him seeking a few minutes of quiet refuge behind the locked door of a toilet cubicle.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: Hidden Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Class: How Classroom Settings Reproduce Social Inequality by Staging Unfair Comparison Sébastien Goudeau and Jean-Claude Croizet In a series of studies, researchers had middle school students answer questions about a written passage. In one condition, students raised their hands each time they answered a question (visibility condition), and in another, they were instructed to not indicate when they had answered a question (no-visibility condition). Children from working-class families underperformed in the visibility condition compared with the no-visibility condition.
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Turning the “Motherhood Penalty” into a “Breadwinner Bonus”
Working mothers are often offered lower salaries and fewer leadership opportunities compared to working fathers, but this penalty can be reduced by framing women as “breadwinners.”
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An Expert Take on Performing Under Pressure
The Wall Street Journal: University of Chicago psychology professor Sian Beilock has spent years investigating how people perform under pressure—and how they can avoid the dreaded choke. The research has proved useful in her own life. For example, to boost her concentration, she might take a walk outside before a big meeting. And if she experiences the beating heart and sweaty palms of anxiety before a speech, she talks herself into thinking they’re signs that she’s excited and ready to go—not that she’s about to flop. “I’ve started practicing a lot of what I preach,” she says. Read the whole story: The Wall Street Journal
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Comfort food doesn’t have to be a guilty pleasure
The Washington Post: Food is supposed to make us feel good — content, fulfilled, connected. It’s meant to comfort us physically by easing hunger and bringing satisfaction, and emotionally by bonding us to others as we share in the experience of a meal. It works that way from the start, when as babies we fill our bellies blissfully in the arms of a nurturing caregiver. There is no guilt involved then. But somewhere along the road to adulthood, the notion of comfort food takes a wrong turn — it becomes something we crave, even obsess over, but ultimately feel bad about eating. It comes with a moral judgment — often described as “sinful.” We are being “good” when we avoid it.
