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Life Satisfaction Linked With Mortality Risk in Older Adults
Greater life satisfaction in adults older than 50 years old is related to a reduced risk of mortality, according to new findings published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The study, involving nearly 4,500 people who were followed for up to 9 years, also revealed that variability in life satisfaction across time increases risk of mortality, but only among less satisfied people. “Although life satisfaction is typically considered relatively consistent across time, it may change in response to life circumstances such as divorce or unemployment,” said Julia Boehm, assistant professor of psychology at Chapman University.
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‘Nation’s Report Card’ to Gather Data on Grit, Mindset
Education Week: The nation's premiere federal testing program is poised to provide a critical window into how students' motivation, mindset, and grit can affect their learning. Evidence has been building for years that these so-called noncognitive factors play a role in whether children succeed both academically and socially. Now, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often dubbed the "nation's report card," is working to include measures of these factors in the background information collected with the tests beginning in 2017. Read the whole story: Education Week
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Is Lying Rational?
Scientific American: Everybody lies. But for the most part, we still see ourselves as good, honest people. So, why do we do it—and are we all just kidding ourselves? This is Scientific American’s 60-Second Science. I’m Daisy Yuhas. Got a minute? Behavioral economist Dan Ariely, at Duke University, studies irrational behavior. In recent years he has found himself drawn to mendacity, prevarication, fabrication—you know, lying. Now Ariely has teamed up with documentarian Yael Melamede to create a film called(Dis)Honesty. Through a series of interviews the movie presents real-world cases of cheating, corruption and little white lies, alongside Ariely’s scientific findings.
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Everything You Thought You Knew About Love is Wrong
TIME: My parents had an arranged marriage. This always fascinated me. I am perpetually indecisive about even the most mundane things, and I couldn’t imagine navigating such a huge life decision so quickly. I asked my dad about this experience, and here’s how he described it: he told his parents he was ready to get married, so his family arranged meetings with three neighboring families. The first girl, he said, was “a little too tall,” and the second girl was “a little too short.” Then he met my mom. He quickly deduced that she was the appropriate height (finally!), and they talked for about 30 minutes. They decided it would work. A week later, they were married. ...
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Charlie Charlie Challenge: Can You Really Summon a Demon?
Live Science: "Charlie, Charlie, can we play?" That is the seemingly innocent question that begins a new "spirit-summoning" game that is taking the Internet by storm. The so-called Charlie Charlie Challenge is based on shaky science (the objective is to summon a malignant spirit from beyond the grave), but there are some real and powerful forces behind this parlor game, according to one expert. Here's how the Charlie Charlie Challenge works: players balance one horizontally aligned pencil on top of a vertically aligned pencil (essentially, in the shape of a cross). ...
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Can Leadership Potential be Predicted at Age 10?
New research concludes that the foundations of leadership may be laid early in life, suggesting that our cognitive abilities as children strongly influence our odds of moving up the corporate ladder as adults. Analyzing data from almost 17,000 working individuals in the UK collected in two major studies over a span of 4 decades, psychological scientists Michael Daly, Mark Egan, and Fionnuala O'Reilly of Stirling University found that high scores for cognitive abilities at age 10 dramatically improved the odds of becoming the boss by age 50.
