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EXCLUSIVE WITH STEVEN PINKER: Remarkable developments are accelerating world progress faster than ever
Business Insider: If you're not optimistic, you're not paying attention. Take it from Steven Pinker, a Harvard psychologist who posited in his 2011 book "The Better Angels of Our Nature" that people are becoming more peaceful and society is getting better in several ways. Even though humanity still faces tragedies such as war and hunger, our species is more peaceful today than it has ever been. For example, as Pinker shows in "Angels," the homicide rate in Europe has fallen as much as fiftyfold since the Middle Ages. Meanwhile, the rate of deaths in war fell to an all-time low last decade.
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Not Lonely at the Top
The New York Times: FOLK wisdom tells us it’s lonely at the top. This makes intuitive sense: To occupy the sole position atop a hierarchy, to have the sole authority for tough decisions nobody else wants to (or can) make, and to bear the sole responsibility for the consequences of those decisions is, almost by definition, to be alone. Power implies isolation. Yet behavioral science research has demonstrated that power confers psychological resources on its holders that might help stave off the loneliness that can accompany isolation.
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Illuminating Mechanisms of Repetitive Thinking
The ability to engage in mental time travel -- to delve back into past events or imagine future outcomes -- is a unique and central part of the human experience. And yet this very ability can have detrimental consequences for both physical and mental well-being when it becomes repetitive and uncontrolled. A special series of articles in the July 2015 issue of Clinical Psychological Science (CPS) investigates this kind of repetitive thinking, exploring the core psychological processes that underlie maladaptive thought processes like worry and rumination.
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Rich people, surrounded by other rich people, think America is richer than it really is
The Washington Post: Economic segregation has some obvious consequences for how we live. It means that poor and rich children attend different schools, that their parents shop in different stores, that their families rely on separate amenities, whether parks or transit lines or community pools. These living patterns, though, also have harder-to-see political consequences. They mean, as new psychology research confirms, that the rich and poor have skewed views about each other — and that, as a result, the rich may be less likely to support programs for the poor.
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How to Help Others the Right Way
TIME: I’ve posted a number of times about how helping others makes you happier. But I know this leaves some people scratching their heads: How much should I help others? How often? Will I be exploited? Will I end up resenting people I love if they don’t reciprocate? We all know selfless givers who are taken advantage of and taken for granted. Nobody wants to feel like a sucker. So this simple thing doesn’t seem so simple — and it feels safer to just be selfish no matter what fancy research and your conscience might tell you.
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The Negative In Positive Stereotypes
NPR: In an interview earlier this year, Sen. Harry Reid argued that it's time for a woman to run for president. "Women have qualities that we've been lacking in America for a long time," he told New York Times reporter Adam Nagourney. For instance, he said, "Women are much more patient." Reid's remarks reflect a positive stereotype — a belief that attributes a favorable characteristic to a group. In this case, it's that women have patience. Women are also stereotypically thought to be nurturing, Asian-Americans to be good at math, African-Americans to be good athletes, and so on.
