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The Paradox of Effort
The Atlantic: Denying instant gratification in deference to long-term goals is virtuous, people tell me. Those people might be right. Psychologists call it self-regulation or self-control. And together with conscientiousness, it’s at least a trait (or a coping mechanism) that’s reasonably good at predicting a young person’s future. People with less self-control are more likely to end up where the world tells them to go. Even in the worst circumstances, people with the most self-control and resilience have the highest likelihood of defying odds—poverty, bad schools, unsafe communities—and going on to achieve much academically and professionally.
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Friend Fail: When Your Partner Dislikes Your Pals
The Wall Street Journal: About a year after she started to date her boyfriend, Shanon Leespotted a potential deal breaker: his friends. She saw how much his pals, men and women, drank and cursed, texted crude jokes late at night and canceled plans at the last minute. They seemed to call only when they needed something, such as advice or money, she says. Ms. Lee didn’t complain to her boyfriend about his friends. Instead, she tried to gently point out their shortcomings. When they’d let her boyfriend down, she would ask, “Do you think this is a problem?” But after one friend asked to borrow $1,000—for a vacation—and her boyfriend ponied up the cash, Ms. Lee offered him an ultimatum.
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In Court, Your Face Could Determine Your Fate
NPR: Your face has a profound effect on the people around you. Its expression can prompt assumptions about how kind, mean or trustworthy you are. And for some people, a study finds, it could help determine their fate in court. Individuals who are deemed to have untrustworthy faces are significantly more likely to be on death row compared with other people convicted of murder, according to a study published Wednesday in Psychological Science. Inmates thought to have trustworthy faces, however, have a higher chance of receiving the more lenient punishment of life in prison.
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Self-Proclaimed Experts More Vulnerable to the Illusion of Knowledge
Research reveals that the more people think they know about a topic in general, the more likely they are to allege knowledge of completely made-up information and false facts.
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Are You a Head Person or a Heart Person?
New York Magazine: Imagine meeting a stranger and having a chance to learn what sort of person they are by asking just one question. You might try the obvious: “Are you an introvert or an extrovert?” Or you could probe their political leanings: “Are you Republican or Democrat?” In each case, you’d hope the answer would tell you a fair bit about the person’s psychology. Here’s a question you probably wouldn’t think of, but which new research suggests could be surprisingly informative: “Do you think your ‘self’ is located in your heart or in your brain?” Read the whole story: New York Magazine
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Aggression in Children Makes Sense—Sometimes
The Wall Street Journal: Walk into any preschool classroom and you’ll see that some 4-year-olds are always getting into fights—while others seldom do, no matter the provocation. Even siblings can differ dramatically—remember Cain and Abel. Is it nature or nurture that causes these deep differences in aggression? The new techniques of genomics—mapping an organism’s DNA and analyzing how it works—initially led people to think that we might find a gene for undesirable individual traits like aggression.
