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How to Build Self-Control, According to Psychologists
You want that new video game so badly, but you’re trying to knock your credit card balance down. Or you’re binging your favorite TV show and can’t wait to find out if a character lives, but it’s late, and you need to be alert for work tomorrow. Just exert a little self-control, you tell yourself. But it’s so hard! ... The participants were then told to do anything they liked for the next hour (while being compensated). The people high in self-control chose activities they rated as meaningful, such as exercising or doing chores; the others went for the purely enjoyable, such as taking a nap or listening to music.
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The Biggest Threat to Online Data Collection Is Humans, Not Bots
Concerns about bots answering online surveys are exaggerated, but a new threat is emerging in artificial intelligence agents.
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Member Spotlight: 2026 Spence Awardee Dorsa Amir on How Culture Shapes the Mind
The director of Duke University’s Mind & Culture Lab conducts research that sits at the intersection of culture, development, and cognition.
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The Surprising Reason for the New Homophobia
... Homophobia of course never went away, but not long ago, it seemed like it might. Implicit and explicit bias against gay people fell steadily from 2007 to 2020 and was on track to soon hit zero (!), according to a 2022 study by the psychologists Tessa E. S. Charlesworth and Mahzarin R. Banaji. This accorded with the ambient feeling of late-2010s culture, when Lil Nas X was the pink-hatted prince of pop and Budweiser was striping its cans in rainbow colors without fear of a bullet from Kid Rock. ... This wave is one symptom of a broader cultural regression.
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How a Healthy Mind-Set Influences Longevity
... Maintaining a positive outlook on life, and about aging in particular, also appears to benefit people in their later years. A 2022 study found that women over 50 who scored highest on a measure of optimism lived, on average, 5 percent longer and had a greater chance of making it to age 90 than those who scored lowest. And a study published this month reported that adults 50 and up who had a positive attitude about getting older — saying they felt as useful or as happy as they did when they were younger — were more likely to maintain, or even slightly improve, on tests of physical and cognitive ability when tracked over 12 years.
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Edward L. Deci, 83, Dies; Found Self-Determination as a Key to Happiness
Edward L. Deci, a psychologist at the University of Rochester whose groundbreaking insights, with his colleague Richard M. Ryan, into what motivates people to do what they do — or not — helped revolutionize fields as disparate as the workplace, education, sports and marketing, died on Feb. 14 at his home in Rochester, N.Y. He was 83. His nephew Brett Jensen said the cause was complications of dementia. Working together in the late 1970s, Dr. Deci (pronounced DEE-cee) and Dr.
