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Gesturing Can Boost Children’s Creative Thinking
Two experiments suggest that encouraging children to use gestures as they think can help them come up with more creative ideas. Visit Page
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The Trait That Turns Some Bosses into Micromanagers
Individuals who felt powerless, despite a high-ranking leadership position, were far less likely to share decision-making authority with their subordinates. Visit Page
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Image of ‘Typical’ Welfare Recipient Linked With Racial Stereotypes
People tend to imagine the ‘typical’ welfare recipient as someone who is African American and who is lazier and less competent than someone who doesn’t receive welfare benefits, studies show. Visit Page
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The Perfect Gift? It’s the One They Asked For
The New York Times: Social scientists bear glad tidings for the holiday season. After extensively observing how people respond to gifts, they have advice for shoppers: You don’t have to try so hard. You’re not obliged to spend hours finding just the right gift for each person on your list. Most would be just as happy with something quick and easy. This may sound too good to be true, but rest assured this is not a ploy by some lazy Scrooges in academia. ... As long as the gift was satisfying, they usually didn’t consider how much thought had gone into it, especially if it came from someone they didn’t know well.
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Does your dog remember what you did?
The Christian Science Monitor: Think back to what you ate for breakfast this morning. Did you picture yourself in your kitchen and visualize the plate in front of you to remember exactly what you ate? That's called an episodic memory – a memory of a particular event that happened at a specific time and place, as opposed to a semantic memory, which refers to more general knowledge or rules that someone understands. ... Not only that, but the dogs aren't even remembering actions that they themselves have done.
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A Brighter Outlook Could Translate To A Longer Life
NPR: Older women who look on the bright side of life were less likely to die in the next several years than their peers who weren't as positive about the future. The research, published Wednesday in the American Journal of Epidemiology, is the latest to find an association between a positive sense of well-being and better health, though it's not yet clear whether one causes the other. ... Optimism could conceivably lead to improved health outcomes through several mechanisms, says Eric Kim, an author of the study and research fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
