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The road to failure is paved with good intentions
The Washington Post: Take a moment to think of a task you wish to accomplish in the next three months. It should be something specific, like clearing out your backyard or completing an online course, so that you can judge, definitively, if and when it has been completed. As you think about it right now, how likely would you say it is that you will finish the task by the end of autumn? Chances are, your prediction is too optimistic. You are less likely to finish the task than you think you are.
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Why honor causes all of society’s problems
Pacific Standard: Glance at a list of critically acclaimed television shows and you'll see stories driven by characters who overreact to perceived signs of disrespect. Walter White doesn't care that people are fond of him; he wants to feel what it's like to be feared. In Fargo, Lester Nygaard's undoing begins when he takes his newfound refusal to not let others push him around too far. And in Game of Thrones, seemingly every character oscillates between calmness and boredom when encountering a "here's why I hate you" soliloquy, then concludes that murder is the only acceptable option when that hatred morphs into a public attack on their honor or status.
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Feel Dumb Asking for Advice? You’ll Actually Appear More Competent.
Entrepreneur: The fear of looking dumb is a nearly universal human emotion, one that often translates into a staunch refusal to seek advice. Because doing so is just an admission of incompetence, right? Dead wrong, at least according to a series of studies by researchers from Harvard Business School and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, which finds that while most people hesitate to ask for advice out of a fear they'll be judged poorly for it, the opposite is true: Ask someone for advice, and he or she is likely to view you as more competent. ... Alison Wood Brooks, who led the research team, answered a few questions for Entrepreneur.com about the study and its implications.
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Why You Should Want Your Kid to Be a Slow Learner
New York Magazine: We tend to assume that learning things easily is the same as learning them well. In school, teachers are pleased when children grasp a concept or a skill in one lesson, and so, of course, are children. The trouble is, when learning is too easy, we may not actually be learning much at all. We know Abraham Lincoln, for example, as an autodidact who made himself erudite in literature, history, and the law. But if you had been at school with him, you probably wouldn’t have marked him out as a future lawyer, let alone a future president. A cousin remembers him as “somewhat dull ...
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Can’t Take My Eyes off You—Your Face, That Is
Scientific American: When it comes to first impressions of a potential new love, the eyes may indeed be the window to the soul—because the direction of your gaze when looking at this person offers an unconscious, automatic giveaway of whether your initial reaction is romance or sex. That’s according to a study in the journal Psychological Science. [Mylene Bolmont et al: Love Is in the Gaze: An Eye-Tracking Study of Love and Sexual Desire] Heterosexual subjects looked at photographs on a computer of fully clothed, attractive strangers of the opposite sex.
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Laptop Note-Taking: External Brain-Booster or Memory Drain?
Education Week: As more and more districts roll out 1-to-1 laptop and tablet initiatives, new research suggests students may be better off sticking to traditional pen and paper longhand for taking and studying notes. In a series of experiments published in the June edition of Psychological Science, Pam Mueller of Princeton University and Daniel Oppenheimer of the University of California Los Angeles found that students taking notes on a laptop could include more material—but that wasn't neccessarily a good thing. Read the whole story: Education Week
