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Extra Credit: Teach your children well about STEM
Wisconsin State Journal: Parents can play a key role in swelling the ranks of students pursuing careers in science, math, engineering and technology (STEM) fields, according to a new UW study published in Psychological Science. Increasing interest in STEM fields is crucial to developing a strong 21st century U.S. workforce, but interest in science and math begins to wane in high school when students choose not to take advanced courses in those subjects, according to the study. While most efforts to change that have focused on things schools can do to increase student interest in STEM classes, researchers at UW demonstrated the influence parents can have.
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What Type of Worker Are You? Your Next Boss May Want to Know
TIME: At one point or another, many of us have been stuck with a job that wasn’t necessarily in our field of interest. That can be bad for the employee in question, of course — but a new psychological study shows that it’s bad for business, as well. Employees who are interested in their jobs consistently perform better than their surly peers. They are more likely to help out coworkers; are less likely to leave their jobs; and even commit less deviant behavior in the workplace, according to the study. If this seems obvious, well, it kind of is.
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Why Conservatives Are Happier Than Liberals
The New York Times: WHO is happier about life — liberals or conservatives? The answer might seem straightforward. After all, there is an entire academic literature in the social sciences dedicated to showing conservatives as naturally authoritarian, dogmatic, intolerant of ambiguity, fearful of threat and loss, low in self-esteem and uncomfortable with complex modes of thinking. And it was the candidate Barack Obama in 2008 who infamously labeled blue-collar voters “bitter,” as they “cling to guns or religion.” Obviously, liberals must be happier, right? Wrong.
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Première impression (First Impression)
Le Monde: L'information fait frémir. Cent millisecondes suffisent pour qu'un employeur potentiel, ou un membre de jury de concours ou d'examen, se fasse une opinion sur quelqu'un. En un dixième de seconde, il se fera une première impression : compétent (ou incompétent), travailleur (ou cossard), aimable (ou détestable). Et pour peu que ce sélectionneur se vante de se fier à son intuition, les conséquences peuvent être formidables (ou désastreuses). Un chercheur américain, Alex Todorov, professeur de psychologie à l'université de Princeton (Etats-Unis), avait fait ce constat dès 2006, à la suite de tests réalisés sur 200 personnes.
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Why Reflection Is Good For Well-Being
The Huffington Post: Make sure you take time to rest and reflect -- new research shows it's important for our well-being. The review of studies, published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, shows that "resting" our brains -- a.k.a daydreaming -- is linked with improvements in self-awareness, learning and memory. "We focus on the outside world in education and don't look much at inwardly focused reflective skills and attentions," study researcher Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, a professor of education, psychology and neuroscience at the University of Southern California, said in a statement.
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Jonathan Haidt: He Knows Why We Fight
The Wall Street Journal: Nobody who engages in political argument, and who isn't a moron, hasn't had to recognize the fact that decent, honest, intelligent people can come to opposite conclusions on public issues. Jonathan Haidt, in an eye-opening and deceptively ambitious best seller, tells us why. The reason is evolution. Political attitudes are an extension of our moral reasoning; however much we like to tell ourselves otherwise, our moral responses are basically instinctual, despite attempts to gussy them up with ex-post rationalizations. Our constellation of moral instincts arose because it helped us to cooperate.
