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Parents Need to Help Their Children Take Risks
Today’s children and teenagers seem to be taking fewer risks. The trend has had some good effects, like decreases in teenage pregnancy, drug use and even accidents. On the other hand, there has been an equally dramatic increase in anxiety in children and teenagers. If life is less risky, why are young people more fearful? A new study in the journal Nature Human Behavior, by Nim Tottenham at Columbia University, Regina Sullivan at New York University and their colleagues, suggests an answer. Young people are designed to take risks and avoiding them too much may lead to anxiety.
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Psychology tells us why older people don’t enjoy new music
When I was a teenager, my dad wasn’t terribly interested in the music I liked. To him, it just sounded like “a lot of noise,” while he regularly referred to the music he listened to as “beautiful.” ... It turns out that my father isn’t alone. As I’ve grown older, I’ll often hear people my age say things like “they just don’t make good music like they used to.” ... In fact, studies have found that by the time we turn 33, most of us have stopped listening to new music. Meanwhile, popular songs released when you’re in your early teens are likely to remain quite popular among your age group for the rest of your life.
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New Research from Psychological Science
A sample of research exploring poverty and puberty, infants’ processing of unexpected events, and a re-examination of statistical-learning ability in newborn chicks.
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Why Some People Become Lifelong Readers
They can be identified by their independent-bookstore tote bags, their “Book Lover” mugs, or—most reliably—by the bound, printed stacks of paper they flip through on their lap. They are, for lack of a more specific term, readers. ... “Introverts seem to be a little bit more likely to do a lot of leisure-time reading,” Daniel Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, told me. Willingham also talked about the importance, which many researchers have examined, of the number of books in one’s childhood home.
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Friend or stranger – who do you turn to?
I read about a study recently, taken over a number of years involving about 30,000 people which focused on whether you were more likely to speak to a friend or a stranger when you are happy or unhappy. What intrigued me about the study was the findings were a lot more negative about interacting with strangers than has been my experience. ... What surprised me about this study (published in Psychological science in July this year), was it concluded if you’re feeling happy, you are more likely to make conversation with a stranger. If you are less happy, you are more likely to confide their problems to a friend.
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Stanford Psychologists Entice Students To Eat More Veggies
The old expression “It’s not rocket science...it’s much, much harder” may well apply to a new study published in the journal Psychological Science. A team of researchers led by Bradley Turnwald of Stanford University took on the challenge of figuring out how to get college students to eat more vegetables. ... Turnwald and his team found that re-labeling cafeteria vegetables with palate-enticing names (for instance, “twisted citrus glazed carrots” or “ultimate chargrilled asparagus”) resulted in double-digit increases in vegetable consumption on college campuses around the country.
