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Time to Ditch ‘Toxic Positivity,’ Experts Say: ‘It’s Okay Not To be Okay’
In the midst of a raging pandemic and widespread social unrest, these days it can feel as if reassuring platitudes are inescapable. “Everything will be fine.” “It could be worse.” “Look on the bright side.”
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What Does Boredom Do to Us—and for Us?
Quick inventory: Among the many things you might be feeling more of these days, is boredom one of them? It might seem like something to disavow, automatically, when the country is roiling. The American plot
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Why Scapegoating Is A Typical Human Response To A Pandemic
First comes the disease. Then the scapegoating. Whether it’s Ebola, cholera and now COVID-19, Jesse Verschuere has witnessed “a pattern of stigma against others in every disease outbreak” he has responded to as part of
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Can Playing Together Help Us Live Together?
APS Member/Author: Elizabeth Levy Paluck The contact hypothesis in psychology predicts that prejudice can be reduced when rival groups come together under optimal circumstances of cooperation and equal status. To date, the weight of real-world
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Apparently There Are 4 Kinds of Introversion
It’s hard to believe now, but introversion was once a mostly misunderstood personality trait. Now, it’s the subject of countless books and articles and listicles (and, more recently, parodies of listicles). And as more regular
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Feel Like You’re Going Out of Your Mind? Consider Your Mind-Set
About 13 years ago I made a mistake in a column written for this newspaper. In the hierarchy of errors, it wasn’t a major one, but it was embarrassing. I said daylight saving time had begun when
