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Marriage at a 100-year low — and that’s a good thing
Chicago Tribune: Brace yourselves for the latest evidence that Americans are fleeing the institution of marriage like Roger Sterling leaves wives. A report release Monday from Demographic Intelligence, which tracks marriage and birth trends in the United States, said marriage rates are the lowest in a century — 6.74 marriages per 1,000 people — and are projected to decline over the next decade. "Even though we have seen a modest recovery in the economy, the marriage rate continues to slowly decline," Demographic Intelligence president Sam Sturgeon says in the report.
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Five words you should stop using when you talk about food
The New Zealand Herald: Words matter, perhaps more than you realise. How you describe something expresses your underlying attitude about it, but the words themselves reflect back at you, shaping your thoughts and actions and impacting your success. A lot of research has been done with athletes - they achieve better results when they talk to themselves with positive, motivational language. But this wordplay goes beyond sports to everyday performance. One study published in Psychological Science revealed the effect a small turn of phrase can have.
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Psychological Scientists Address the Challenges of an Aging Workforce
Older adults are a growing proportion of the American workforce in unprecedented numbers. For the first time since 1948, American employees over age 65 outnumber teenage workers, according to a report from AARP. Yet, older workers are still beset by discriminatory hiring and negative stereotypes about their capabilities and competence. Last week, psychological scientists from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) hosted a congressional briefing in the Senate demonstrating how evidence-based strategies can help organizations and policymakers successfully manage the emerging challenges of the world’s aging workforce.
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Speaking a Mile in Someone Else’s Shoes
Pacific Standard: In the midst of a debate over the potential cognitive benefits of learning a second language, new research suggests it may have social value as well. Actually, even being around people who speak different languages may help children learn to take others' perspectives, making communication more effective for everyone. "[E]xposure to multiple languages is, and has been for millennia, an integral part of human development," writes a team led by University of Chicago psychology graduate student Samantha Fan in Psychological Science.
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Writing and speaking come from different parts of the brain, study shows
Los Angeles Times: Written and spoken language can exist separately in the brain, a new study from Johns Hopkins shows. The study looked at stroke victims with aphasia that impaired their communication capabilities in one way but not the other. Researchers at Johns Hopkins, Rice and Columbia universities studied five stroke patients with aphasia, difficulty communicating after their strokes. Four could speak but not write sentences that took a certain form -- the study focused on affixes, such as the "-ing" in "jumping" -- while the last could write those sentences but not speak them. ...
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HOW TO PULL YOURSELF OUT OF A CAREER RUT
Fast Company: It’s human nature to feel overcome with doubt during periods of change. Sometimes an event in your personal life can derail positive momentum in your professional career. These disruptions have a tendency to propel you into a state of unrest and uncertainty, where the decisions you make in the moment might not be the best in the long term. ... An April 2015 study published in Psychological Science, found that measuring time in days instead of months, or months instead of years, makes future events seem closer. The study’s authors concluded people work harder toward reaching their goals when their perception of time has been altered. We tend to get ahead of ourselves in life.
