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Social Constraints Can Spark Creativity in Diverse Groups
It’s often assumed that creativity is unleashed by removing constraints, but new research finds that establishing clear expectations for social interactions actually encouraged creativity among mixed-sex work groups. A team of psychological scientists, led by Jack Goncalo of Cornell University, wanted to test whether a politically correct environment would dampen people’s creativity — or whether clear social boundaries would actually encourage diverse groups of people to share novel ideas.
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Attention to Angry Faces May Predict Future Depression
Using eye-tracking technology, researchers have found that women with a history of depression tend to spend more time looking at the angry faces compared to women with no history of depression.
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Don’t be fooled by a know-all
The Guardian: I’m not the first to point out that the rise of smartphones has killed one rather pleasurable form of conversation – the kind that involves confidently chuntering on about subjects you dimly recall, or know nothing about, as if you were really an expert. ... Yet the internet isn’t about to end the widespread human tendency to claim to know about topics you don’t – and even sincerely to believe that you know. The easiest way to demonstrate how prevalent this is, as outlined in a forthcoming paper in Psychological Science, is to ask people about “impossible knowledge” – facts they couldn’t possibly know, because researchers made them up.
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Thirty Million Words Aren’t Enough
Pacific Standard: Thirty million words. That's the gap between what kids from high- and low-income families hear by the time they're three, and it's widely thought to explain socioeconomic disparities in language skills and, later on, academic success. But a recent study puts an age-old twist on that: Quality may matter more than quantity. ... "Yet the quantity of language input is insufficient to account for variations in language development," argues a team of psychologists led by Kathy Hirsh-Pasek.
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Different cognitive skills peak at different times over our lifespans, research finds
MinnPost: Here’s some promising news for anybody who’s aging (and that, of course, is all of us): A recent series of crowd-sourced experiments suggest that different aspects of fluid intelligence — our ability to think abstractly, reason quickly and solve problems — peak at different periods during adulthood. In other words, our brains do not, as previously believed, reach a so-called cognitive peak when were in our 20s and then start an inevitable descent. Some kinds of fluid intelligence actually improve with age. Read the whole story: MinnPost
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Everyday Routines Make Life Feel More Meaningful
Scientific American: Think about the most meaningful experiences in your life. You will probably recall your wedding, or a trip across Europe, or your first skydive. You won't name brushing your teeth. Yet recent research suggests that the mundane regularities of life can very much contribute to your overall sense of meaning. As squishy as the concept sounds, meaning in life is an integral part of our well-being. Research has associated it with good mental health, success at work and longevity. Psychologists have proposed three aspects: significance, purpose and coherence. In other words, life is meaningful when it feels important, when it seems to have a point and when it makes sense.
