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Why rewards can backfire
The Guardian: Here’s a story about a man with a machiavellian genius for psychological manipulation. (It comes from the US educator Alfie Kohn, so I’ll Britishise it here.) This man is elderly and lives near a school. Every afternoon a group of pupils subject him to merciless taunts as they walk home. So he approaches them and offers a deal: he’ll give each child £1 if they come back next day to taunt him further. Incredulous but excited, they agree. They return to mock him; he pays as promised, but tells them that the following day, he’ll only be able to afford to pay 25p per person.
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With Shifts in National Mood Come Shifts in Words We Use, Study Suggests
The New York Times: In the wake of the election, it’s clear American society is fractured. Negative emotions are running amok, and countless words of anger and frustration have been spilled. If you were to analyze this news outlet for the ratio of positive emotional words to negative ones, would you find a dip linked to the events of the past few weeks? It’s possible, suggests a study published last week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Give Thanks For Siblings: They Can Make Us Healthier And Happier
NPR: Somehow we're squeezing 18 people into our apartment for Thanksgiving this year, a year when too many people are worrying about fraught post-election conversations. My relatives, who luckily are all cut from the same political cloth, range in age from my mother, aged 92, to my 32-year-old nephew (my 17-month-old granddaughter's political leanings are still unfolding.) I love them all, but in a way the one I know best is the middle-aged man across the table whose blue eyes look just like mine: my younger brother Paul. ... So if your kid sister is the queen bee in any social gathering, you might get labeled "the quiet one" even if you're not especially quiet, just quiet in comparison.
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Want to Give a Good Gift? Think Past the “Big Reveal”
Gift givers often make critical errors in gift selection during the holiday season, focusing on the moment of exchange instead of the long-term utility or practical attributes of the gift.
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‘They Were Just Like Us, and They Lost Everything’
The Atlantic: According to Jamil Zaki, assistant professor of psychology and the director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Laboratory, even though empathy is a fundamental human emotion, people are not exactly wired for a globalized response. “When we evolved, we were in small groups of interdependent individuals, so the people that you would run into and subsequently empathize with were probably family or extended family,” he explained. “And nowadays, we’re given the unprecedented opportunity to empathize, reach out to and help, not just the people who are right around us, but people all around the world. ...
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Why Do We Believe Fake News? Accepting Inaccurate Information Is Less Work Than Being Critical, According To Research
Bustle: Some have attributed the election results in part to the ease with which inaccurate, hyperpartisan information circulates on social media, prompting questions about why fake news is believed even when the information is clearly false or satirical — and indeed, our tendency to believe inaccurate information warrants examination, which is exactly what a recent research study has done. Because whether or not fake news actually swayed the election, the internet has made spreading misinformation easier than ever — that much is clear. ... The answer, it turns out, has less to do with deliberate ignorance and more to do with the way the brain works.
