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Latitude Adjustment: Distance from the Equator Shapes Our Thinking
In the past decade, psychologists have made a welcome leap, expanding beyond a narrow focus on the North America, Europe and Australia in their research to include people from all over the world. One benefit has been greater insight on global distribution of cultural features—the society-level differences in psychological phenomena such as happiness, individualism and aggressiveness. ... In both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, happiness is higher in countries farther away from the equator (such as Denmark or New Zealand) than those closer to it (such as Vietnam or Cambodia). ...
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The fast track to a life well lived is feeling grateful
For the Ancient Greeks, virtue wasn't a goal in and of itself, but rather a route to a life well lived. By being honest and generous, embodying diligence and fortitude, showing restraint and kindness, a person would flourish – coming to live a life filled with meaning and finding an enduring, as opposed to ephemeral, happiness. Today, that view hasn't much changed. ... Consider honesty. Say I ask people to play a game of chance where they could flip a virtual coin to win one of two monetary prizes: a small one or a larger one. Let's also say the flip occurs in private.
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The Decision-Making Puzzle
If you’ve ever played the classic puzzle-like computer game Tetris, you know that it starts out slowly. As the seven different pieces (called “zoids” by the initiated) descend from the top of the screen, a player has to shift the pieces horizontally and rotate them so that they fit into a gap in the stack of pieces at the bottom of the screen, or “well.” In early levels, the pieces might take 10-15 seconds to fall. The speed increases at each level. In world champion Tetris matches, players often start play at Level 18—in which pieces are on the screen for about a second.
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‘It’s About Human Nature’: What Science Tells Us About Being A Bandwagon Nats Fan
We’ve all done it. We’ve jumped on the bandwagon because something became popular. Many people in the region are now jumping on the Nationals’ bandwagon as they head to the World Series this week. ... Social psychologists such as American University professor Trina Ulrich describe the desire to join trends and popular celebrations as the Bandwagon Effect. “[It’s] essentially a psychological phenomenon that happens when people are doing something because others are doing it already,” Ulrich said. It has to do with a psychology term called dispositional hope. It’s the belief that you can achieve personal goals.
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Experienced Drivers Keep Their Eyes on the Road Differently
It can take years for motorists to fully develop the cognitive processes required to navigate safely, including learning to scan a wider swath of the road ahead.
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Robert Provine, scholar of laughter, yawns, and hiccups, dies at 76
Robert R. Provine, a neuroscientist who brought scientific rigor to the study of laughter, yawns, hiccups and other universal human behaviors that had previously gone largely unexplored, died Oct. 17 at a hospital in Baltimore. He was 76. The cause was complications from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, said his wife, Helen Weems. Dr. Provine had spent four decades as a psychology professor at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County before his retirement in 2013. He continued to teach at the university in recent years as a professor emeritus ...
