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Seeing Narcissists Everywhere
The New York Times: From the triumph of Botox to the rise of social networking and soccer teams that give every kid a trophy, Jean M. Twenge is constantly on the lookout for signs of a narcissism crisis in America. ... In 2009 she published another popular book, “The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement,” with a frequent collaborator, W. Keith Campbell, a psychologist at the University of Georgia. Today, colleges and corporations often hire her as a speaker or consultant to help them better understand how to recruit and work with millennials. But as her media profile has risen, so has the volume of criticism from her colleagues.
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Misdemeanors and Crimes: Is There a Slippery Slope?
The Huffington Post: Vito Corleone, the mobster at the center of The Godfather saga, begins his career as a petty criminal. A Sicilian immigrant trying to raise a family in a New York City tenement, he agrees to help out a friend, Peter Clemenza, by stashing some guns. Soon after, he joins Clemenza in burglarizing a fancy apartment, and comes home with a nice rug. One burglary leads to another, and they eventually come to the attention of the local mob boss, Don Fanucci, who wants his cut of their loot. Rather than comply, Corleone follows Fanucci home and murders him in his apartment. It's the first of many murders that he will commit or order in his long life of crime.
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Sociable lunches may reduce work performance
The Washington Post: Lunch at a restaurant with a friend could lessen the brain’s aptitude for detailed tasks back at work, a new study suggests. If an error-free afternoon is the goal, perhaps workers should consider hastily consuming calories alone at their desks. ... The news is not all bad for those who dine out, Sommer says. Being less rigidly focused might come in handy when navigating sticky social situations or solving problems creatively. Sommer’s lab is testing the effects of social meals on workers’ creativity and generosity. “Being a little less focused could be good or bad, depending on the situation,” says psychologist Paul Rozin of the University of Pennsylvania.
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Your Kids Don’t Care That Their Favorite Athlete Did Steroids
Pacific Standard: A least, that’s always a part of the discussion that surrounds things like what happened last week, with the suspension of Ryan Braun, the star baseball player for the Milwaukee Brewers who vehemently denied allegations of PED use and then got totally busted for said PED use. How very Lance Armstrong of him. (It looks like Alex Rodriguez is next, but let’s be real, even the smallest kids know better by now.) On top of how will it affect Braun and how will it affect the game and how does it affect us, there’s always: How does this affect the kids? ... That, and so much more, is what I learned from Dr.
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Violence will rise as climate changes, scientists predict
Los Angeles Times: While social commentators have long suggested that extreme heat can unleash the beast in man, formal study of the so-called heat hypothesis — the theory that high temperatures fuel aggressive and violent behavior — is relatively new. Using examples as disparate as road rage, ancient wars and Major League Baseball, scientists have taken early steps to quantify the potential influence of climate warming on human conflict.
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The Whistle-Blower’s Quandary
The New York Times: IMAGINE you’re thinking about blowing the whistle on your employer. As the impassioned responses to the actions of whistle-blowers like Edward J. Snowden have reminded us, you face a moral quandary: Is reporting misdeeds an act of heroism or betrayal? In a series of studies, we investigated how would-be whistle-blowers make this decision. Our findings, to be published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, not only shed light on the moral psychology of whistle-blowing but also reveal ways to encourage or discourage the practice. Read the whole story: The New York Times
