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We know better, so why can’t we stop making snap judgments based on appearance?
Science: Imagine you are part of an experiment. You and your coparticipants are shown photographs of two individuals and are asked to choose who is more leader-like. Unbeknownst to you, the individuals in the photographs are real-life candidates vying for a seat in the U.S. Congress. Would it surprise you to learn that the average ratings of the participants in the experiment could reliably predict which candidate would go on to win the electoral contest? In 2005, I pondered this very experiment, published in Science by psychologist Alexander Todorov and colleagues. Read the whole story: Science
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How to fight ‘time famine’ and boost your happiness
CNN: Ashley Whillans' summer started with what she calls "time famine." Time famine, a term that first emerged in the scientific literature around 1999, refers to the universal feeling of having too much to do but not enough time to deal with those demands. After earning her doctorate degree in social psychology at the University of British Columbia in Canada, Whillans was offered a coveted assistant professorship at Harvard Business School. Last month, Whillans and her husband uprooted to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States -- and it was overwhelming, she said. ...
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New Research in Clinical Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Clinical Psychological Science: Unpacking Rumination and Executive Control: A Network Perspective Emily E. Bernstein, Alexandre Heeren, and Richard J. McNally Rumination is defined as perseverative passive self-focused thinking about aspects of one's affective state. Rumination has been identified as a potential transdiagnostic vulnerability factor for affective disorders and is hypothesized to arise from impairments in executive control. The researchers examined the interactions of three executive-control processes (set shifting, updating working memory, and inhibition) and their influence on rumination.
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We fear death, but what if dying isn’t as bad as we think?
The Guardian: “The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else,” wrote Earnest Becker in his book, The Denial of Death. It’s a fear strong enough to compel us to force kale down our throats, run sweatily on a treadmill at 7am on a Monday morning, and show our genitals to a stranger with cold hands and a white coat if we feel something’s a little off. But our impending end isn’t just a benevolent supplier of healthy behaviours. Researchers have found death can determine our prejudices, whether we give to charity or wear sun cream, our desire to be famous, what type of leader we vote for, how we name our children and even how we feel about breastfeeding. ...
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One surprising way money can buy happiness, according to scientists
The Washington Post: If you were given $40 on the condition that you had to spend it on something that would make you really happy, what would you do with the money? Some people might go shopping, others would treat themselves to dinner or a movie, a few might even donate to cause. But what about using that $40 to "buy" yourself more free time? According to a study published Monday in the journal PNAS, people who buy time by paying someone to complete household tasks are more satisfied with life. And it’s not just wealthy people. Across a range of incomes, careers and countries, timesaving purchases were correlated with less time-related stress and more positive feelings.
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THE UPSIDE OF NEUROTICISM
Pacific Standard: Neurotic people, by definition, spend much of their lives in a dark mood. Given the positive emotions are associated with good health, it's reasonable to assume that all that guilt, anger, and anxiety will eventually lead to an early grave. Well, surprise: A sizable new study from Great Britain reports that, for many neurotics, the opposite is true. Among two large subsets of participants, "higher neuroticism was associated with reduced mortality from all causes," writes a research team led by Catharine Gale of the University of Edinburgh. Read the whole story: Pacific Standard
