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It’s Not a Tumor! The Psychology Behind Cyberchondria
Newsweek: It’s a familiar story. You feel a little under the weather, so you rush to WebMD or MedicineNet for a self-diagnosis. When you leave the sites, you’re convinced your headache and minor nausea must indicate brain cancer. This kind of Web-enabled hypochondria, dubbed “cyberchondria,” is becoming increasingly common as more people visit the Internet instead of the doctor’s office. According to a 2009 Pew poll, 61 percent of Americans use the Internet for medical information, and other recent studies have shown wide levels of increased anxiety triggered by this habit.
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Democrats & Republicans Don’t Care Much About Each Other’s Physical Distress
Discover Magazine: As we descend into another election year, it would be nice if we could remember that people across the political divide are, er, people too. Unfortunately, that’s harder than it sounds, according to a new study in Psychological Science. Democrats and Republicans both are less likely to empathize with people from the opposite end of the political spectrum. Psychologists know that empathy is often dependent on similarity. It’s easier, for example, to empathize with Jack London’s characters when you’re reading about Yukon explorers at a snowy bus stop than on the beach in Cancun.
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Children may learn coping with poverty
United Press International: Although the poor have a higher risk of heart disease, stroke and cancer, many children who grow up poor have good health as adults, Canadian searchers say. Edith Chen and Gregory E. Miller of the University of British Columbia say poor children are less likely to have a predictable routine and a stable home; their parents may have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet and may not be able to afford to fix a leaky roof, for example. Miller and Chen propose a strategy that might reduce stress and improve health they call "shift-and-persist." The first part, shift, means reappraising things that are stressful.
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The Surprising Benefits of Corporate Disunity
Huffington Post: I love reading accounts of the West Wing's inner workings, because they are studies in the predictable quirkiness of human psychology. Presidents and their trusted staffs always arrive in the White House with a unified message and team spirit, and they inevitably disintegrate into factions -- ideological purists and pragmatists, seasoned vets and young Turks. It's just as true of Obama's West Wing today as it was of Nixon's and FDR's, and probably every presidency back to the founding. The common wisdom is that such factions are a bad thing, not just for the White House but for any complex organization.
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Study of the Day: Why Teams Don’t Always Make the Best Decisions
The Atlantic: PROBLEM: Important decisions are often reached when people collaborate. But can confidence in one's teammates also backfire? METHODOLOGY: University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School researchers Julia A. Minson and Jennifer S. Mueller asked 252 people to estimate nine numbers related to United States geography, demographics, and commerce, either individually or in pairs after a discussion. They were then offered the estimates of other individuals and pairs and allowed to revise their own, so the final estimates could come from the efforts of two to four people. The subjects also rated their confidence in their judgments.
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Your (Virtual) Future Self Wants You To Save Up
NPR: A retirement crisis is looming. As people live longer, one study finds that half of all households are at risk of coming up short on retirement money. And while many working households may feel they simply don't have enough to spare for retirement, experts say some of the biggest barriers to saving up are psychological. Now, new research has found a way around that barrier: providing a virtual glimpse into the future that could help motivate young people to save more for retirement. "When you make a decision now about yourself in the future, that distant self almost feels like a stranger," says Hal Hershfield of New York University's Stern School of Business.
