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The Paradox of Idleness
Would Sisyphus have been happier just sitting in a jail cell, twiddling his thumbs? After all, the punishment Zeus meted out to him was nothing more than make-work: rolling that boulder up the hill again Visit Page
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How lucky charms really work
Wade Boggs, the former Red Sox slugger and third baseman, was very ritualistic about his warm-ups. For night games, he took batting practice at precisely 5:17 and ran wind sprints at exactly 7:17. He fielded Visit Page
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The perils of ‘having it all’
It’s fair to say that Thurston Howell III doesn’t savor the little things in life. One of seven castaways on an uncharted Pacific island, the WASPy billionaire never stops scheming to get back to his Visit Page
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The ignorant and the furious: video and catharsis
The Greek philosopher Aristotle had many original and enduring ideas, but he didn’t get everything right. One idea that’s been pretty much debunked by modern psychology is catharsis. Catharsis is the notion that we can Visit Page
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"I feel your disease"
Make no mistake. Flu season isn’t over. I was in my doc’s office the other day for something routine, and he’s still pushing the H1N1 vaccine. I don’t know why the other patients were in Visit Page
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The ironic power of stereotype
Brent Staples is an editorial writer for the New York Times and a University of Chicago-trained psychologist. He is also African-American, and back in the 70s, when he was doing his graduate studies, he discovered Visit Page
