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For the Old, Less Sense of Whom to Trust
The New York Times: There’s a reason so many older people fall for financial scams, new research suggests. They don’t respond as readily to visual cues that suggest a person might be untrustworthy, and their brains don’t send out as many warning signals that ignite a danger-ahead gut response. The research, published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to show that older adults’ vulnerability to fraud may be rooted in age-related neurological changes.
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Q&A on Regifting With Gabrielle Adams
Gabrielle Adams is an assistant professor of organizational behavior at London Business School. Her research interests include morality and ethical behavior, as well as human behavior. In reference to "The Gifts We Keep On Giving," the research article in Psychological Science: What sparked your interest to study psychology and human behavior? As an undergraduate, I first decided to major in Philosophy because I wanted to ask questions about fundamental problems. When I took Thane Pittman’s social psychology course at Colby College, I realized that I could also come up with some answers to these questions by conducting empirical tests of the ideas I had about human behavior.
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Why Old People Get Scammed
Science: Despite long experience with the ways of the world, older people are especially vulnerable to fraud. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), up to 80% of scam victims are over 65. One explanation may lie in a brain region that serves as a built-in crook detector. Called the anterior insula, this structure—which fires up in response to the face of an unsavory character—is less active in older people, possibly making them less cagey than younger folks, a new study finds. Both FTC and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have found that older people are easy marks due in part to their tendency to accentuate the positive.
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Six Books to Build a Dream On
The Wall Street Journal: Now that you have all these ideas about what you'd like to change (whether it's starting an exercise plan, plotting a job hunt, managing your budget or moving elsewhere), here's the book to tell you how to get going: "Changeology: 5 Steps to Realizing Your Goals and Resolutions" by John Norcross. A leading researcher on the psychology of change, Mr. Norcross has identified five distinct stages common to successful behavioral change, which he calls the five P's: psych (getting ready by specifying realistic goals), prep (preparing to take the leap), perspire (taking action), persevere (managing slips) and persist (maintaining change).
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Connecticut School Shooting: 4 Tips to Help Kids Cope
ABC: Alan Kazdin, a professor of child psychology at Yale University, offers four tips for parents to frame that discussion and help their kids cope. Don’t Over-Talk This Parents can easily project their own fears onto their kids. Your kids will likely hear about it, so your child has questions. Answer at the level of the question. Parents shouldn’t dwell on the tragic nature of it, but don’t be evasive. Don’t lie, don’t withhold.
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Walk Like a Fish
The New York Times: NOBODY in their right mind visits Midtown Manhattan during the holidays. The reason is simple: everyone, it seems, is in Midtown Manhattan during the holidays. Drawn to the scene like lacewings to streetlights, tourists jam the sidewalks, the crowds slow-moving, veering, shopping-bag-laden, and only vaguely walking forward. New Yorkers normally roll their eyes, but they ought to take a closer look: watching these tourists interrupt the flow of traffic shows us how well pedestrians in our city usually move. This year I slowed down and observed them. The study of pedestrian movement took off with the urban sociologist William H.
