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You 2.0: The Empathy Gym
What books are on your summer reading list? If you're reading mostly nonfiction, consider the benefits of adding a novel to the mix. "There's a fair amount of evidence now that the more fiction that people read, the more empathetic that they become," says Stanford psychologist Jamil Zaki. "Because fiction is one of the most powerful ways to connect with people who are different from us who we might not have a chance to meet otherwise." Zaki argues that empathy is like a muscle — it can be strengthened with exercise and it can atrophy when idle. On this episode of Hidden Brain, we talk about calibrating our empathy so we can interact with others more mindfully.
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No, Video Games Are Not a Factor in Mass Shootings
Rather than acknowledge the political motivations of the El Paso shooter or the line of radicalization that led him toward reactionary white supremacy, a number of politicians are returning to a popular scapegoat: video games. Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and President Donald Trump all cited violent video games as a factor in these shootings and other acts of violence in the US. These complaints are a decades-old distraction and continue to be unsubstantiated. There is no significant evidence that video games are a contributing factor to mass shootings. ...
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New Research: How Much Screen Time Is Bad for Kids?
Sitting in front of a screen is bad for you. Then it's good for you. Then it's bad for you again. But, like, only a bit. Allow me to explain. ... This is exactly the hypothesis that two researchers from the University of Oxford tested in a paper called "A Large-Scale Test of the Goldilocks Hypothesis: Quantifying the Relations Between Digital-Screen Use and the Mental Well Being of Adolescents." (Przybylski and Weinstein, 2017). The authors collected information from a frankly ridiculous number of adolescents in the UK, resulting in screen time and mental well being data on over 120,000 young people.
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Science Says There Is Such a Thing as Too Little Procrastination and It Will Make You Less Successful
There are a million and one articles out there about how to stop procrastinating. This column isn't one of them. This column is here to tell you that this is such a thing as procrastinating too little. If that seems like utter nonsense to you, fear not. It was complete gibberish to me too when I first came across the science of something called "precrastination," but the research on the subject turns out to be pretty clear. We can make ourselves less productive by rushing to do tasks, just as much as by putting them off. Here's how. ... You probably shouldn't have, according to a now classic 2014 experiment by Pennsylvania State University psychologist David Rosenbaum.
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Op-Ed: Implicit bias puts lives in jeopardy. Can mandatory training reduce the risk?
The California State Assembly is preparing to vote on three bills to require mandatory training on implicit bias for law enforcement officers, medical professionals, judges and trial lawyers. The legislation singles out those professions because they are roles in which unconscious biases might put the lives of others in jeopardy. But the truth is, we all carry around unconscious stereotypes that can lead to differences in how we think about and treat others.
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BIRACIAL AMERICANS FACE UNIQUE STEREOTYPES, ACCORDING TO A NEW STUDY
The growing number of biracial Americans could, in theory, lead to a less prejudiced society. But new research suggests that these Americans aren't so much shattering stereotypes as finding themselves pigeonholed with new ones. "A lot of stereotypes of black-white biracial people were completely different from the ones people have about white people and black people," reports Northwestern University psychologist Sylvia Perry, who authored the study with fellow researchers Allison Skinner and Sarah Gaither. "This suggests that people might actually think of biracial people as their own racial group, rather than just a combination of their parents' racial groups."
