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ADHD Drug May Help Preserve Our Self-Control Resources
Methylphenidate, also known as Ritalin, may prevent the depletion of self-control, according to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Self-control can be difficult -- sticking with a diet or trying to focus attention on a boring textbook are hard things to do. Considerable research suggests one potential explanation for this difficulty: Exerting self-control for a long period seems to “deplete” our ability to exert self-control effectively on subsequent tasks. “It is as if self-control is a limited resource that ‘runs out’ if it is used too much,” says lead researcher Chandra Sripada of the University of Michigan.
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Creative Hobbies Linked With Job Performance
At some point or other, most of us probably feel like our work lives are gobbling up our personal lives, leaving little time for hobbies. But new research indicates that people who spend time on
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Hungry? Avoid serious conversations with your spouse.
The Washington Post: Raise your hand if you’ve had a stupid fight with your husband or wife when you were hungry and cranky. Right, I thought so. Well, new research backs up the idea that when you’re hungry you have less self-control, and when you have less self-control, you tend to be more aggressive with intimate partners. Even more interesting is the way Ohio State scientists, led by Brad J. Bushman, a professor of psychology and communication, conducted their experiment.
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Be thankful and make better long-term decisions
The Boston Globe: We are notoriously bad at foregoing instant gratification for longer-term rewards. In laboratory studies and in the real world, people frequently make impatient decisions that economists would call “suboptimal,” and, in real-life terms, result in credit card debt, obesity, or drug addiction. Add emotion to the mix, and the decision-making seems to get worse: sad people make even more impatient financial decisions, one study found. Stamping out emotional responses seems like the best path to making wiser and more logical decisions.
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Q&A: Why 40% of us think we’re in the top 5%
SmartPlanet: In 1996 McArthur Wheeler walked into two banks and attempted to rob them in broad daylight, wearing no disguise. The video surveillance caught his face clearly and later that day he was recognized and arrested, to his surprise. He remarked, “But I wore the juice.” Wheeler mistakenly believed that rubbing lemon juice over your face and body rendered you invisible to video cameras. He had tested this apparently, by shooting a Polaroid of himself, and somehow his image mysteriously never appeared in the shot.
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Got A Hobby? Might Be A Smart Professional Move
NPR: Maybe you paint, keep a journal or knit. Or maybe you play bass in a punk rock band. Whatever hobby you have, keep at it. A little study published this week suggests that having a creative outlet outside the office might help people perform better at work. Psychologists from San Francisco State University found that the more people engaged in their hobbies, the more likely they were to come up with creative solutions to problems on the job. And no matter what the hobby was, these people were also more likely to go out of their way to help co-workers. The findings were published Wednesday in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology.