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Counseling center cares for people with ‘complicated grief’
The Washington Post: Cindi Day cheered as the bus carrying 6-year-old Tai-Vaughn Moore home from camp pulled up. The sole guardian of her grandson, she hadn’t found it easy to surrender him even for the weekend. But Tai-Vaughn had been acting up in school, and Day hoped the three-day camp for youths who had lost a close relative would help him. She greeted him with a huge grin, asking how he was. ... For decades, much of the literature on bereavement was not based on science, said George Bonanno, a clinical psychology professor at Columbia University. Around the 1980s, researchers finally began studying grief rigorously. The results?
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Wer zuerst kommt, mahlt zuerst (First come, first served)
ORF Austria: Ob man bei einem Vorstellungsgespräch erfolgreich ist oder nicht, hängt nicht nur von der eigenen Leistung ab. Entscheidend ist, wie gut die Kandidaten sind, die sich davor vorgestellt haben. Wer als erster drankommt, hat statistisch bessere Chancen, zeigt eine neue Studie aus den USA. Menschen, die an einem Tag viele ähnliche Entscheidungen treffen müssen, verlieren leicht den Überblick. Sie treffen jede Entscheidung für sich und sind nicht in der Lage, die Konsequenzen der einzelnen Entscheidungen miteinander zu verknüpfen. Dieser Umstand wird in der Psychologie auch als "narrow bracketing" bezeichnet.
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Facebook Chitchat Is Unforgettable
Science: One day in 2011, a Facebook user professed a love for clean sheets, ending the humble status update with a smiley face. Little did this person realize, the post would inform our understanding of memory. Scientists have found that, when it comes to mental recall, people are far more likely to remember the text of idle chitchat on social media platforms like Facebook than the carefully crafted sentences of books. The researchers happened upon the findings by accident.
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Train a Parent, Spare a Child
The New York Times: SOMEONE asked me recently what my New Year’s resolution was as a parent. Without thinking, I said, “more creative bribing.” I find the issue of bribing children — or to be more precise, the giving of blunt, uncreative rewards for desired behavior (“If you just stop kicking that seat in front of you on the plane, I’ll give you 10 minutes of iPad time”; “Clean your room this weekend, I’ll give you 10 bucks”; “If you use good manners at Grandma’s house, I’ll let you have an extra brownie”) — to be one of the more nagging challenges of being a parent.
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Who Am I? The Heroes of Our Minds
The Huffington Post: One of my guilty pleasures is the TV show Ice Road Truckers, which tells the stories of the heavy haulers who deliver vital supplies to remote Arctic territories of Alaska and Canada. In just two months each year, these truckers make more than 10,000 runs over hundreds of miles of frozen lakes, known as ice roads. We get to share in the treacherous drives -- and just as important, the personal travails -- of the veteran Hugh "The Polar Bear" Rowland, the brash tattooed Rick Yemm, the cold-hating rookie T.J. Wilcox, and former school bus driver and motocross champ Lisa Kelly, one of the rare women to break into this man's world. I'm not alone in this fascination.
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Troubled Family Life Changes Kids’ Brains
Scientific American: Stress and neglect at home take an obvious toll on kids as they grow up. Many decades of research have documented the psychological consequences in adulthood, including struggles with depression and difficulties maintaining relationships. Now studies are finding that a troubled home life has profound effects on neural development. ... “Infants are constantly absorbing and learning things, not just when we think we're teaching them,” says Alice Graham, a doctoral student who led the study, forthcoming in the journal Psychological Science.
