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The Making of an Olympian
The world’s top athletes, including Olympians, rarely start competing at a young age or specialize early in the sport that will make them champions, according to a provocative new study of the athletic backgrounds of thousands of successful athletes. Instead, the study finds, most world champions sample one sport after another as children and gain mastery in their chosen activities considerably later than other, more focused young athletes whom they eventually go on to defeat.
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
A sample of research on evaluation in psychopathology, adolescents’ use of digital technologies and mental health, depression in adolescents and their parents, childhood adversity and cardiovascular reactions, self-regulation and institutionalized children, marital satisfaction and mental health, and the benefits of imagining one’s goals.
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Do Olympic-Level Achievements Make People Happy?
The appeal of the Olympics is that they decide who can claim the title of best in the world. They also, less gloriously, decide who can claim the title of second best in the world. Despite beating out every competitor on Earth but one, silver medalists can feel a special type of disappointment. In a study that analyzed footage from the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, they were consistently judged to look less happy than bronze medalists, both right after competition and atop the medal podium.
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Make a Call on Quitting Your Job Without Any Regrets
It feels like everyone’s doing it. More than 7.5 million workers quit their jobs in April and May, up from 4.3 million during the same period the year before. Everyone’s talking about fresh starts. Burnout, the return-to-office mandate, boredom after a year of career stagnation: They can all seem like good enough reasons to send that farewell email. But is leaving your job right now the right call? How do you make a decision you won’t regret? More than a third of workers are looking for a new job, according to a May survey of 1,021 Americans from PricewaterhouseCoopers.
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This is the New Battleground in the Fight to Retain Employees
The exodus of employees many of us are now familiar with (nicknamed “The Great Resignation”) is shaping up to be one of the most memorable work trends of the pandemic. Despite a significantly high unemployment rate and feelings of uncertainty generated by the pandemic, the spike in people quitting their jobs has hovered at record-breaking level according to recent Labor Department data. And concerning for employers, studies are suggesting as much as 40% of employees are currently thinking about leaving their jobs. Why is this happening?
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Trust in Science Can Be Risky Without Critical Mindset
Reminding people of the value of critical evaluation reduces belief in false claims, but reminding them of the value of trusting science does not. “We conclude that trust in science, although desirable in many ways, makes people vulnerable to pseudoscience,” the researchers write. “These findings have implications for science broadly and the application of psychological science to curbing misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic.” “People are susceptible to being deceived by the trappings of science,” says coauthor Dolores Albarracín, professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
