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Why macaroni and cheese tastes so good when we’re down
The Washington Post: Macaroni and cheese, a staple of so many children's diets, might be the most popular comfort food known to man — or at least any American. The Kraft variety, so carefully split into its essential components — dried pasta, packaged cheese product, and step-by-step directions — makes its way into millions of homes around the country each year. So too does Annie's — little white shells, perky rabbit, and all. And restaurants haven't been shy about serving their own, house-made versions. This country's long-held obsession with the wholesome dish is so great that it has even been cited as a contributor to the steady growth of cheese consumption in the United States. ...
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Do Parents Nurture Narcissists By Pouring On The Praise?
NPR: When a kid does something amazing, you want to tell her so. You might tell her that she's very smart. You might tell her that she's a very special kid. Or you might say that she must have worked really hard. On the surface, they all sound like the same compliments. But according to Brad Bushman, a communications and psychology professor at Ohio State University, the first two increase the child's chances of becoming a narcissist. Only the last one raises the child's self-esteem and keeps her ego in check. Bushman and a group of collaborators surveyed parents to see how they show warmth and value their child's accomplishments.
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Choosing Sadness: The Irony of Depression
I knew a man some years ago who suffered from serious and chronic depression. He also lived what seemed to me a melancholy life, listening to sad, sentimental music, reading dreary existential novels, and rarely venturing out of his dark and gloomy house. I cared for this man, and I was perplexed by this. I knew that he suffered from a debilitating disease, but he also didn’t seem to be taking simple steps that might lift his mood. It was almost like he was choosing sadness. This seems like an ungenerous thought, I know, but it turns out there may be some truth to it.
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Psychopath. Successful Psychopath.
The Huffington Post: Forest "Tommy" Yeo-Thomas was a real-life swashbuckler, charismatic and daring. The British World War II spy, known as the "White Rabbit" to the Nazis, employed an array of disguises and fake documents to elude the enemy in Vichy France, once pretending to be a corpse while traveling in a coffin. He withstood severe torture by the Gestapo, leapt from a moving train, and strangled a prison guard with his bare hands. He was also known as a seducer of beautiful women. Most people have never heard of Yeo-Thomas, though most are familiar with his fictional incarnation. He was the inspiration for novelist Ian Fleming's flamboyant hero Bond. James Bond.
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Why income inequality is so much worse than we realize
Scientific American: In a candid conversation with Frank Rich last fall, Chris Rock said, “Oh, people don’t even know. If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets.” The findings of three studies, published over the last several years in Perspectives on Psychological Science, suggest that Rock is right. We have no idea how unequal our society has become. In their 2011 paper, Michael Norton and Dan Ariely analyzed beliefs about wealth inequality. They asked more than 5,000 Americans to guess the percentage of wealth (i.e., savings, property, stocks, etc., minus debts) owned by each fifth of the population.
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Procrastination Is Not Great for Your Heart
New York Magazine: People who are self-admitted procrastinators are also more likely to have heart disease, according to a study published online this week in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine.Fuschia M. Sirois of Bishop's University in Quebec, who led the research, gave a group of people with hypertension and cardiovascular disease and a group of healthy people a variety of questionnaires, including one designed to measure their proclivity toward putting things off.
