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Twisted Tales: Unraveling the Surprising Benefits of Irony
Podcast: APS’s Özge Gürcanlı Fischer Baum and Penny Pexman (Western University) discuss cognitive flexibility and emotion recognition, two crucial aspects underlying the processing of sarcastic speech.
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As More People Choose the Single Life, Researchers Ask: Are They Happier?
Nastasha Streiling says even though she'd like a relationship, she's happy being single. The 28-year-old, who lives in Victoria, says she's "not going to be with someone unless it enhances things." She's part of a growing number of single people in Canada and around the world. "There seems to be evidence that around the world people are staying single longer and sometimes staying single permanently," said Geoff MacDonald, a psychologist at the University of Toronto whose lab studies the well-being of single people.
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Your Immune System Can Make You Feel Sad, and That’s a Good Thing
While your body fights germs, you feel depressed, anti-social, even lethargic. Social neuroscientist Keely Muscatell offers an evolutionary explanation for why your mood and immune system are linked. ...
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We Still Don’t Believe How Much Things Cost
Deodorant was what changed Rob Cooper’s mind about the economy. After paying under $4 for his signature Old Spice Stronger Swagger for a decade, the 49-year-old was shocked last year to see it priced at $7.99. “My brain just cannot rationalize paying twice as much,” says Cooper, the Ambler, Pa.-based financial officer of a retail chain. “It doesn’t feel right.” Consumer-behavior researchers call Cooper’s expectation of $4 deodorant a reference price. A yearslong run of higher prices has unmoored many Americans’ expectations of what daily purchases should cost, from a cup of coffee to a package of paper towels.
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
A sample of research on the role of shame in the sexual-orientation disparity in mental health, moving toward anti-racism, profiles of risk in low-income children, and much more.
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The Secret to Accomplishing Big Goals Lies in Breaking Them Into Flexible, Bite-Size Chunks
The prospect of learning a new language can be daunting, especially for an adult. Spending dozens of hours a year on lessons just to make slow progress on a new skill can seem out of reach—particularly when juggling work and family responsibilities as well. That was certainly how one of us (Milkman) felt about her decades’ long ambition to learn Spanish. That all changed, however, when a popular language-learning app presented a more attractive approach: complete one lesson—just six or seven minutes long—every day in order to eventually become bilingual.
