-
10 Things You Don’t Know About Yourself
1. Your perspective on yourself is distorted. Your “self” lies before you like an open book. Just peer inside and read: who you are, your likes and dislikes, your hopes and fears; they are all there, ready to be understood. This notion is popular but is probably completely false! Psychological research shows that we do not have privileged access to who we are. When we try to assess ourselves accurately, we are really poking around in a fog. Princeton University psychologist Emily Pronin, who specializes in human self-perception and decision making, calls the mistaken belief in privileged access the “introspection illusion.” The way we view ourselves is distorted, but we do not realize it.
-
Why You Should Argue in Front of Your Kids
In this episode of Home School, Adam Grant, a psychologist at the Wharton School and New York Times best-selling author, explains why parents shouldn’t shield children from their disagreements. “We want to raise more kids who know how to argue… to solve differences and find creative solutions,” he says. In fact, exposing children to what Grant terms “thoughtful” conflict can have surprising long-term benefits.
-
Less cramming. More Frisbee. At Yale, students learn how to live the good life.
Laurie Santos greeted her Yale University students with slips of paper that explained: No class today. It was mid-semester, with exams and papers looming, everyone exhausted and stressed. There was one rule: They couldn’t use the hour and a quarter of unexpected free time to study. They had to just enjoy it. Nine students hugged her. Two burst into tears. Santos, a professor of psychology, had planned to give a lecture about what researchers have learned about how important time is to happiness. But she had created a singular class, on the psychology of living a joyful, meaningful life. And she wanted the lessons to stick. All semester, she explained why we think the way we do.
-
People Make Different Moral Choices in Imagined Versus Real-Life Situations
The moral decisions people make in hypothetical scenarios may not always reflect real-life behavior, researchers find.
-
How Useful Is Fear?
Franklin D. Roosevelt no doubt meant to be soothing when he insisted, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” A quick and terrifying tour through the academic literature on fear, though, reveals just how much heavy lifting that only was doing. Our fears run broad and deep, and are every bit as diverse as we are. The 2017 version of Chapman University’s Survey of American Fears tabbed “corruption of government officials” as the most common fear, afflicting nearly 75 percent of respondents; concerns about the health-care system, the environment, personal finance, and war also figured in the top 10.
-
Why ruthlessness is a net negative in politics
What’s the right way to exert political influence? Is it more effective to be selfless and virtuous, or forceful and ruthless? Recent research we’ve conducted of the behavior of US senators reveals something surprising: Being a virtuous leader actually carries its own rewards. We conducted a study of the leadership attributes of US senators across several decades of floor speeches. We were looking for visual cues about their leadership styles. Do they demonstration compassion and empathy? Or do they demonstrate manipulation and ruthlessness? Given the current polarized political climate, one might think that to get anything done, politicians need to be ruthless and forceful.
