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How to Inspire Creative Thinking: Details, Details
Pacific Standard: Vagueness is the enemy of creativity. Beethoven didn't just come up with the idea that a symphony could express heroism; he also wrote the precise notes that conveyed that concept in sound. For ideas to be both novel and useful—a standard definition of creativity—they need to be expressed in highly specific terms. But how do you make the leap from a hazy notion to one that is spelled out in practical details? Newly published research points to one simple technique that may do the trick. ...
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Not an Introvert, Not an Extrovert? You May Be An Ambivert
The Wall Street Journal: Emeroy Bernardo enjoys spending time alone, meditating, exercising and working. When he goes out for dinner or drinks with friends, he sometimes quietly observes people’s facial expressions and body language. Often when he’s shopping or running errands, he ignores people he knows—pretending he doesn’t see them—to avoid small talk. Still, the 27-year-old dance instructor who lives in Glendale Calif., considers himself friendly and meets new people almost everywhere—at the gym, at Starbucks, waiting to board a plane. At parties, Mr. Bernando is often the guy who starts a dance circle and then shows off his break-dancing moves. Is Mr.
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EXCLUSIVE WITH STEVEN PINKER: Remarkable developments are accelerating world progress faster than ever
Business Insider: If you're not optimistic, you're not paying attention. Take it from Steven Pinker, a Harvard psychologist who posited in his 2011 book "The Better Angels of Our Nature" that people are becoming more peaceful and society is getting better in several ways. Even though humanity still faces tragedies such as war and hunger, our species is more peaceful today than it has ever been. For example, as Pinker shows in "Angels," the homicide rate in Europe has fallen as much as fiftyfold since the Middle Ages. Meanwhile, the rate of deaths in war fell to an all-time low last decade.
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Not Lonely at the Top
The New York Times: FOLK wisdom tells us it’s lonely at the top. This makes intuitive sense: To occupy the sole position atop a hierarchy, to have the sole authority for tough decisions nobody else wants to (or can) make, and to bear the sole responsibility for the consequences of those decisions is, almost by definition, to be alone. Power implies isolation. Yet behavioral science research has demonstrated that power confers psychological resources on its holders that might help stave off the loneliness that can accompany isolation.
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Illuminating Mechanisms of Repetitive Thinking
The ability to engage in mental time travel -- to delve back into past events or imagine future outcomes -- is a unique and central part of the human experience. And yet this very ability can have detrimental consequences for both physical and mental well-being when it becomes repetitive and uncontrolled. A special series of articles in the July 2015 issue of Clinical Psychological Science (CPS) investigates this kind of repetitive thinking, exploring the core psychological processes that underlie maladaptive thought processes like worry and rumination.
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Rich people, surrounded by other rich people, think America is richer than it really is
The Washington Post: Economic segregation has some obvious consequences for how we live. It means that poor and rich children attend different schools, that their parents shop in different stores, that their families rely on separate amenities, whether parks or transit lines or community pools. These living patterns, though, also have harder-to-see political consequences. They mean, as new psychology research confirms, that the rich and poor have skewed views about each other — and that, as a result, the rich may be less likely to support programs for the poor.
