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A Rational Case for Following Your Emotions
In the popular American imagination, emotion and rationality are often mutually exclusive. One is erratic, unpredictable, and often a liability; the other, cool, collected, and absent obvious feeling. And even though research suggests that people experience emotions internally in similar ways no matter their gender, many Americans still regard emotion as uniquely feminine and weak. That myth has long ruled everything from the military to the white-collar workplace, and it has played a role in systemically excluding women from professional and cultural leadership. But dismissing the value of emotion is at odds with how human feelings actually work, both interpersonally and evolutionarily.
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Psychologist Finds 2 Easy Strategies to Beat the Stress of Waiting for News
The anxiety of waiting can be brutal. Whether you’re waiting on GRE scores, job application news, health test results, or any other weighty piece of life information, some strategies for coping are more effective than others. One powerful way to deal with that sense of anxious foreboding, scientists argued in a recent paper in the Journal of Positive Psychology, is to have your mind blown. According to research conducted by scientists at University of California-Riverside’s “Life Events” lab, one good way to deal anxiety-ridden waiting is to have an “awe experience.” Psychologist Katharine Sweeny, Ph.D. describes this as a moment that helps you lose yourself in the grandeur of life.
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
A sample of research exploring depression and autobiographical memory, early response and sudden gains in a depression intervention, inflammatory proteins as predictors of change in depressive symptoms, and emotion displays and relationship formation in anxiety disorder.
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Contaminated Memories
I began exploring the intersection of memory and law after hearing the story of Penny Beerntsen, who was assaulted while running on a beach in 1985 — and who misidentified her assailant in the subsequent investigation. There’s a term for what she experienced: “memory contamination.” It’s when investigators influence an interview with a subject, resulting in inaccurate information. Moved by Ms. Beerntsen’s account as well as her openness about it, I wanted to help share her story more broadly. (Her case became well known when her misidentified assailant’s account was featured in the series “Making a Murderer;” the show does not include Ms.
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What’s So Funny? The Science of Why We Laugh
“How Many Psychologists Does It Take ... to Explain a Joke?” Many, it turns out. As psychologist Christian Jarrett noted in a 2013 article featuring that riddle as its title, scientists still struggle to explain exactly what makes people laugh. Indeed, the concept of humor is itself elusive. Although everyone understands intuitively what humor is, and dictionaries may define it simply as “the quality of being amusing,” it is difficult to define in a way that encompasses all its aspects.
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The Life-Changing Magic of Being Messy
You might have a “messy” friend or family member. You can’t help but sigh at the chaos of their room — clean and dirty laundry mixed together. Odds are it’ll be difficult to walk two feet without encountering an empty chip bag. Gross? Yes. Bad? Not necessarily. As a stereotypically “messy” person myself, I’ve received my own share of scorn. Living in a boarding school, I’m obligated to keep my room nice and tidy, ready for visitors and as a model to underclassmen. Monday room inspections are the norm, and faculty members have sometimes passively, sometimes aggressively, urged my roommate and me to clean up.
