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Too Many Doctors Can Hurt a Patient in ‘Bystander Effect’
ABC: An acutely ill man with mysterious symptoms -- a nasty rash, kidney and lung failure -- was admitted to Yale-New Haven Hospital where he was treated by 40 of its finest doctors. But because so many cared for him, two of the attending residents say, the 32-year-old patient actually got sicker. That is because of the so-called "bystander effect," they say in an article published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. ... Ervin Staub, founding director of the doctoral program in the psychology of peace and violence at University of Massachusetts, has devoted his career to the study of how a person can become an "active bystander," the witness who is in a position to take action.
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How to Be a Better Boss in 2013
The Wall Street Journal: The new year has arrived—and with it, the inevitable wave of self-improvement plans and resolutions. Along with pledging to lose weight or kick a coffee habit, why not resolve to be a better manager in 2013? From practicing your job to avoiding the 'reply-all' button, Journal reporters and management experts offer tips on how to do it. For many, time spent at the office counts as "work." But not all work is created equal. There is a difference between doing things you already know how to do and doing things that force you to stretch and improve your skills, according to psychology professor K.
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Study: Racial stereotyping linked to creative stagnation
Salon: In an article published in Psychological Science, researchers at Tel Aviv University found that racial stereotyping and creative stagnation have something big in common: categorical thinking. “Although these two concepts concern very different outcomes, they both occur when people fixate on existing category information and conventional mindsets,” wrote lead researcher Carmit Tadmor. As it turns out, having an essentialist mind-set about a broad category of people usually means that you’re equally narrow in all of your thinking. Read the whole story: Salon
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Want a good night’s sleep? Let the baby cry, say psychologists
The Telegraph: For academics claim to have shown that letting an infant cry itself to sleep is the best way to ensure a good night’s rest for all. While most babies sleep through five or six night a week by the age of six months, according to the study by American psychologists, a third continue to wake much more frequently until they are toddlers. They looked at sleep patterns in 1,200 children from birth to three years and found 'wakers' tended to be boys. They also tended to be breast fed. The research was led Marsha Weinraub, professor of psychology at Temple University in Philadelphia.
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Just 8% of People Achieve Their New Year’s Resolutions. Here’s How They Do It.
Forbes: Let me guess: You want to lose weight in 2013, or maybe just eat healthier. Perhaps you want to spend less money or spend more time with your friends and family. I know I do. Self-improvement, or at least the desire for it, is a shared American hobby. It’s why so many of us—some estimates say more than 40% of Americans—make New Year’s resolutions. (For comparison, about one-third of Americans watch the Super Bowl.) ... “We say if you can’t measure it, it’s not a very good resolution because vague goals beget vague resolutions,” says John Norcross of the University of Scranton. Read the whole story: Forbes
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Resolutions: So Irresistible, So Hard to Keep
The Wall Street Journal: It's a scenario most of us know well: We start out on a grand plan to exercise more, lose weight or cut out the cigarettes. Then we fail, sometimes repeatedly, each time convincing ourselves that next time we'll manage. Why can't we stick to the plan, and why do we try again? ... Having hope that one can achieve a goal, and making repeated efforts to reach it, can sometimes be necessary, says Janet Polivy, a psychology professor at the University of Toronto who has studied dieters for decades. After all, people may need several tries to learn from their mistakes or come up with better strategies.
