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Why Bad News Is Good News
Pacific Standard: If you read the news often enough, you’ll know the world is populated by corrupt politicians, rapacious bankers, perverted priests, racist college students, and several hordes of armed zealots. Our planet is not a kind place—at least, if you keep up with the latest media reports. In 2007, for example, the Pew Research Center released data showing that for the past two decades Americans have been mainly interested in the following types of news stories: United States-related war and terrorism, bad weather, and human-made and natural disasters. Crime and social violence, plus health and safety, also ranked higher than most other categories. So, pretty bleak stuff.
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American Dream? Or Mirage?
The New York Times: ECONOMIC inequality in the United States is at its highest level since the 1930s, yet most Americans remain relatively unconcerned with the issue. Why? One theory is that Americans accept such inequality because they overestimate the reality of the “American dream” — the idea that any American, with enough resolve and determination, can climb the economic ladder, regardless of where he starts in life. The American dream implies that the greatest economic rewards rightly go to society’s most hard-working and deserving members. ...
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Pensate in termini di giorni non di anni (Think in terms of days, not years)
La Stampa: Per ritrovare la forma fisica, programmare le visite di controllo o realizzare un importante progetto sono necessari giorni, settimane e, a volte, mesi di lavoro. Per questo motivo, le imprese di lungo periodo sono così difficili da compiere. La tendenza a procrastinare è in agguato. Un trucco per facilitare le cose e impegnarsi in tempo per raggiungere l’obiettivo, secondo un gruppo di ricercatori americani, è quello di ragionare in termini di giorni e non di mesi.
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Could It Be? Researchers Find A Hiring Bias That Favors Women
NPR: Think, for just a moment, about the last job you applied for. If you didn't get the job (apologies), did you get an interview? If not, did you feel some hidden forces, beyond your control, working against you? Perceived hiring biases against women working in science, technology, engineering and math have been around as long as women have been graduating from STEM programs. From 2008 to 2010, women received the majority of doctorate degrees in life and social sciences but only 32 percent of the open assistant professorships. Now comes a study that offers something of a counter-narrative — that, given the chance, universities would rather hire women for STEM tenure-track positions.
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Look who’s swiping now: 6-month-old babies are using smartphones, study says
The Washington Post: Smart phone. Dumb idea. More and more Americans are handing their smartphones to their kids, some as young as 6 months old, according to a new study. Experts warn, however, that the habit could be harmful for a child’s development, despite the promises of cellphone “learning apps.” More than a third of kids under 1 year old are already swiping away on cellphones and tablets, according to a survey by pediatric researchers at the Einstein Healthcare Network. ...
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How to Combat Distrust of Science
Scientific American: Acceptance of science has become increasingly polarized in the United States. Indeed, a recent Pew poll shows that there is a substantial and growing amount of public disagreement about basic scientific facts, including human evolution, the safety of vaccines and whether or not human-caused climate change is real and happening. What is causing this, you might ask? People often interpret the same information very differently. As psychologists, we are more than familiar with the finding that our brains selectively attend to, process and recall information.
