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Visualizing Specific Impacts of Climate Change Could Change Behavior
Many people view climate change as a distant, abstract threat. But having them imagine the tangible consequences of resulting droughts or floods may help shift this perception and encourage proenvironmental behavior, a new study suggests. Researchers asked 93 college students in Taiwan to read a report on temperature anomalies, floods and other climate change-related events that have affected the island. The scientists then asked 62 of the participants to write down three ways in which such phenomena might impact their future lives. Half the people in that group were instructed to imagine such scenarios in detail, including specific individuals and settings.
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To Prevent Loneliness, Start in the Classroom
Starting in September of 2020, schoolchildren across the United Kingdom will learn from their teachers how to fend off loneliness. In January, British Prime Minister Theresa May appointed the first “minister of loneliness.” This week, her administration released an 84-page plan detailing the actions it will take to curb loneliness across the country, including measures that will be enacted in schools. Starting in primary school, students will have mandatory lessons in “relationships education,” and such lessons will also be incorporated into sex-ed classes in high school.
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Altruists Make More Money and Have More Kids
Altruistic people tend to score higher on many measures of life satisfaction. Yes, that seems counterintuitive, and such scales can admittedly be subjective. So a research team decided to explore the relationship between selflessness and two outcomes we are evolutionarily programmed to desire: wealth and procreation. It reports generous people have more children than selfish ones. What's more, as a rule, they also earn more money. It further finds "people generally expect selfish individuals to have higher incomes," an unsupported belief that can inspire bad behavior.
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The One Thing You Should NEVER Say in a Thank You Email After a Job Interview
The moments after a crucial job interview may feel like a sigh of relief or a pang of anxiety. But, no matter how you feel, there’s an important next step: writing a thank you note. Whether over email or by hand, a thank you note after a job interview is expected nowadays as a basic sign of appreciation. So how do you both stand out and effectively show your gratitude? Never — never — use your thank you note as an opportunity to ask for a favor. “It should stand on its own without asking for something. Just pure appreciation,” says Peter Bregman of Bregman Partners, a management consultancy company where he works with CEOs and business leaders.
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What Happens When A Country Bans Spanking?
In 1979, Sweden became the first country to ban the corporal punishment of children. Earlier this year, Nepal became the 54th country to do so. Now a new study looking at 400,000 youths from 88 countries around the world suggests such bans are making a difference in reducing youth violence. It marks the first systematic assessment of whether an association exists between a ban on corporal punishment and the frequency in which adolescents get into fights.
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So Is Living Together Before Marriage Linked to Divorce or What?
Late last month, the Journal of Marriage and Family published a new study with a somewhat foreboding finding: Couples who lived together before marriage had a lower divorce rate in their first year of marriage, but had a higher divorce rate after five years. It supported earlier research linking premarital cohabitation to increased risk of divorce. But just two weeks later, the Council on Contemporary Families—a nonprofit group at the University of Texas at Austin—published a report that came to the exact opposite conclusion: Premarital cohabitation seemed to make couples less likely to divorce.
