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With Age Comes Not Only Wisdom, but Trust
Pacific Standard: On the whole, do you trust people? Considerable research suggests fewer and fewer Americans do, and given the well-established link between trust and well-being, that’s concerning. Fortunately, a newly published paper suggests your faith in your fellow man will very likely go up as the years go by. “An aging world may become a more trusting world,” write Michael Poulin of the University of Buffalo and Claudia Haase of Northwestern University. Their research, based on data from 83 countries, finds individuals typically turn more trusting over the course of their lives—and confirms that this shift in attitude is, on balance, a positive thing.
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Teenagers Shape Each Other’s Views on How Risky a Situation Is
Young adolescents’ judgments on how risky a situation might be are most influenced by what other teenagers think, while most other age groups are more influenced by adults’ views, according to new research in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Psychology researchers at University College London (UCL) asked 563 visitors to the London Science Museum to rate the riskiness of everyday situations such as crossing a road on a red light or taking a shortcut through a dark alley. Ratings were given on a continuous scale from low to high risk, and children (aged 8-11) generally rated situations as more risky than all other age groups.
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The Smartest Age
The Atlantic: In their darkest moments, people occasionally say “my best years are behind me.” The problem is, people say this whether they’re 69 or 29. Ezekiel Emanuel, a doctor and bioethicist, believes he only has 18 good years left: By 75, he wrote, “I will have made whatever contributions, important or not, I am going to make.” At what age do we really peak? Is there ever a point where, intellectually, we’re as good as we’re going to get? It depends on what you’re measuring, it turns out.
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Aggressive boys grow into strong men
The Boston Globe: AGGRESSIVE PEOPLE SHOULD also be strong; otherwise, they might pick a fight they can’t win. But this raises an interesting chicken/egg problem: Do aggressive people start out strong and learn later that they can act aggressive, or do they start out aggressive and then grow strong? Research on twins in Minnesota revealed that boys with greater self- and teacher-reported aggressive-antisocial tendencies at age 11 were not consistently stronger—as measured by handgrip strength—than other boys. However, by age 17, they were significantly stronger. In other words, guys who start out acting tough later grow the strength to back it up. Read the whole story: The Boston Globe
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A Hug a Day Keeps the Doctor Away
Scientific American: During my final semester of undergrad, I made two signs that read, “Feeling stressed about exams? Have a free hug!” Then I recruited a friend and we stood in the entrance of the campus library, held up the signs, and waited. Passerbys had one of two reactions: Either they quickly looked down at their phones and awkwardly shuffled by, or their faces lit up as they embraced us. Most people were enthusiastic. Some exclaimed, “You made my day!” or “Thank you. I needed this.” One leapt into my arms, nearly toppling me over. After two hours of warm interactions, my friend and I couldn’t believe how energized and happy we felt.
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What Your Tweets Say About You
The New Yorker: How much can your tweets reveal about you? Judging by the last nine hundred and seventy-two words that I used on Twitter, I’m about average when it comes to feeling upbeat and being personable, and I’m less likely than most people to be depressed or angry. That, at least, is the snapshot provided by AnalyzeWords, one of the latest creations from James Pennebaker, a psychologist at the University of Texas who studies how language relates to well-being and personality.
