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When Romance Is a Click Away
The Wall Street Journal: For many men and women looking for new love at midlife and beyond, the place to go is obvious: the Internet. But how best to navigate cyberspace in pursuit of romance? Eli J. Finkel, a professor of social psychology at Northwestern University, recently co-wrote a study about the benefits and limitations of online dating. We spoke to Dr. Finkel from his office in Evanston, Ill. Here are edited excerpts of that conversation: WSJ: People at midlife and beyond are the fastest-growing segment using Internet dating sites. Why is that? DR.
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We’re All Climate-Change Idiots
The New York Times: CLIMATE CHANGE is staring us in the face. The science is clear, and the need to reduce planet-warming emissions has grown urgent. So why, collectively, are we doing so little about it? Yes, there are political and economic barriers, as well as some strong ideological opposition, to going green. But researchers in the burgeoning field of climate psychology have identified another obstacle, one rooted in the very ways our brains work. The mental habits that help us navigate the local, practical demands of day-to-day life, they say, make it difficult to engage with the more abstract, global dangers posed by climate change.
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Stop bullying the ‘soft’ sciences
Los Angeles Times: Once, during a meeting at my university, a biologist mentioned that he was the only faculty member present from a science department. When I corrected him, noting that I was from the Department of Psychology, he waved his hand dismissively, as if I were a Little Leaguer telling a member of the New York Yankees that I too played baseball. There has long been snobbery in the sciences, with the "hard" ones (physics, chemistry, biology) considering themselves to be more legitimate than the "soft" ones ( psychology, sociology). It is thus no surprise that many members of the general public feel the same way.
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Psychologie: Der Kompass des Bösen (Psychology: The compass of evil)
ORF Austria: Mehr als 50 Jahre ist es her, dass der US-Psychologe Stanley Milgram die Barbarei zum wissenschaftlichen Untersuchungsgegenstand erklärt hat. Forscher bieten nun eine Neuinterpretation seiner klassischen Experimente an: Grausam wird der Mensch nicht nur durch Gehorsam - sondern auch durch soziale Identifikation. "Ich habe ein einfaches Experiment an der Yale-Universität durchgeführt, um herauszufinden, wie viel Schmerz ein gewöhnlicher Mitbürger einem anderen zufügen würde, einfach weil ihn ein Wissenschaftler dazu aufforderte", notierte Stanley Milgram 1974 in einer Rückschau. Read the whole story: ORF Austria
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Flummoxed by Failure—or Focused?
The Wall Street Journal: Many people think of intelligence as static: you are born with lots of brains, very few, or somewhere in between, and that quantum of intelligence largely determines how well you do in school and in life. The astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has never liked this view. "I hardly ever use the word intelligence," says Mr. Tyson, who directs the Hayden Planetarium in New York. "I think of people as either wanting to learn, ambivalent about learning or rejecting learning." He speaks from experience: As a young man, he was booted from one doctoral program but managed to get into another and complete his Ph.D.
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Can You Be Addicted to Social Media?
Everyday Health: These days, you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who isn’t caught up in a world of status updates, re-tweets, followers and check-ins. Social media has certainly made it easier for people to connect with each other and share information. And with Facebook boasting more than 900 million monthly users and a record-breaking IPO, the social media space is only going to expand. The problem is, the fast-paced, instant-gratification nature of social media creates an environment where we often feel highly compelled to broadcast our thoughts and experiences to others.
