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Creating a New Mission Statement
The New York Times: Forget the New Year’s resolution. This year, try creating a personal mission statement instead. While it is common for businesses to define goals and values with mission statements, most people never take the time to identify their individual senses of purpose. Most focus on single acts of self-improvement — exercising more, eating more healthfully, spending more time with family — rather than examining the underlying reasons for the behavior, says Jack Groppel, co-founder of the Johnson & Johnson Human Performance Institute, an Orlando-based coaching firm.
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Language on Twitter Tracks Rates of Coronary Heart Disease
Twitter can serve as a dashboard indicator of a community’s psychological well-being and can predict county-level rates of heart disease. Visit Page
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Hard Work Or Hard Times?
A big part of parenting is teaching kids self-control. Yes, sugary snacks do taste good, but even so we shouldn’t eat them too often. Yes, we know that math homework may not always be fun, but it must come before TV. Yes, soccer practice may seem tedious, but it’s the road to excellence on the field and beyond. And so forth. No parent disputes this. It’s in the manual. Indeed, we’re all expected to take this life lesson on faith. Hard work and effort are virtues worth instilling, and worth having. But what do we mean by worth? Does self-discipline today really pay off later in life—in jobs, paychecks, promotions and bonuses, professional prestige and wealth?
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Friends’ Personality Insights May Predict Your Longevity
Romantic partners walking down the aisle may dream of long and healthy lives together, but close friends in the wedding party may have a better sense of whether those wishes will come true. Visit Page
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How Do We Grow To Like The Foods We Once Hated?
NPR: Why do some of us like to slather hot sauce or sprinkle chili powder onto our food, while others can't stand burning sensations in our mouth? It probably has to do with how much we've been socially pressured or taught to eat chili, according to Paul Rozin, a cultural psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania who has studied attitudes toward food for decades. We first read about Rozin's research on spicy food in Tasty: The Art and Science of What We Eat. It's a new book by John McQuaid that's been excerpted in the Wall Street Journal and was featured Sunday on Weekend Edition. We asked Rozin to tell us more about his work on spice tolerance.
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Should Schools Teach Personality?
The New York Times: Self-control, curiosity, “grit” — these qualities may seem more personal than academic, but at some schools, they’re now part of the regular curriculum. Some researchers say personality could be even more important than intelligence when it comes to students’ success in school. But critics worry that the increasing focus on qualities like grit will distract policy makers from problems with schools. In a 2014 paper, the Australian psychology professor Arthur E.
