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Seeing Isn’t Believing
Pay attention! It’s a universal warning, which implies that keeping close watch helps us perceive the world more accurately. But a new study by Yale University cognitive psychologists Brandon Liverence and Brian Scholl finds that intense focus on objects can have the opposite effect: It distorts perception of where things are in relation to one another. The findings will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. “Figuring out where objects are in the world seems like one of the most basic and important jobs the brain does,” says Liverence, a graduate student.
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The Sugary Secret of Self-Control
The New York Times: Ever since Adam and Eve ate the apple, Ulysses had himself tied to the mast, the grasshopper sang while the ant stored food and St. Augustine prayed “Lord make me chaste — but not yet,” individuals have struggled with self-control. In today’s world this virtue is all the more vital, because now that we have largely tamed the scourges of nature, most of our troubles are self-inflicted. We eat, drink, smoke and gamble too much, max out our credit cards, fall into dangerous liaisons and become addicted to heroin, cocaine and e-mail. Nonetheless, the very idea of self-control has acquired a musty Victorian odor.
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On 9/11 Americans were more than angry
Examiner: A study in 2010 by three scientists showed that on September 11, 2001, the air was sizzling with anger — and the anger got hotter as the hours passed. That analysis was obtained by employing a commonly used tool called Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC), which teases out information from the frequency of word usages in texts on the 85,000 pages of messages sent that day. Yet, was anger the only feeling on that terrible day a decade ago? Turns out it wasn't. Although anger was a definite part of the national response, there was also sadness, sympathy, bravery, fear, compassion, and a profound concern for our fellow Americans. Clemson University psychologist Cynthia L. S.
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A More Progressive Tax System Makes People Happier
The way some people talk, you’d think that a flat tax system—in which everyone pays at the same rate regardless of income—would make citizens feel better than more progressive taxation, where wealthier people are taxed at higher rates. Indeed, the U.S. has been diminishing progressivity of its tax structure for decades. But a new study comparing 54 nations found that flattening the tax risks flattening social wellbeing as well.
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Why The Trip Home Seems To Go By Faster
NPR: In 1969, astronaut Alan Bean went to the moon as the lunar module pilot on Apollo 12. Although the trip going to the moon covered the same distance as the trip back, "returning from the moon seemed much shorter," Bean says. People will often feel a return trip took less time than the same outbound journey, even though it didn't. In the case of Apollo 12, the trip back from the moon really did take somewhat less time. But the point remains that this so-called "return trip effect" is a very real psychological phenomenon, and now a new scientific study provides an explanation.
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Don’t Mess With Breastfeeding Women
Miller-McCune: Earlier this year, we reported that breast-feeding women are widely viewed as less competent. Newly published research suggests it would be unwise to share that unflattering opinion with them. According to a team led by UCLA health psychologist Jennifer Hahn-Holbrook, lactating women display higher levels of aggression than both non-mothers and their bottle-feeding counterparts. What’s more, their blood pressure stays low even as their combativeness increases, which may be nature’s way of allowing new mothers to calmly but effectively deal with potential threats.
