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Quality of Words, Not Quantity, Is Crucial to Language Skills, Study Finds
The New York Times: It has been nearly 20 years since a landmark education study found that by age 3, children from low-income families have heard 30 million fewer words than more affluent children, putting them at an educational disadvantage before they even began school. The findings led to increased calls for publicly funded prekindergarten programs and dozens of campaigns urging parents to get chatty with their children. Now, a growing body of research is challenging the notion that merely exposing poor children to more language is enough to overcome the deficits they face.
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The Flow of Happiness
Whether in the creative arts, athletics, work, or spiritual practice, happiness lies in working to expand one’s skill level. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has devoted his career to studying what makes people happy. Building on years of detailed research, Csikszentmihalyi created the term “flow” to describe the experience of being completely immersed in an activity for its own sake. When someone is in a state of flow, self-consciousness disappears and sense of time becomes distorted, according to Csikszentmihalyi’s research.
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Is Powerlessness the Key to Successful Negotiation?
Leigh Steinberg, the real-life inspiration for the title character in the film Jerry Maguire, is one of the most successful agents in the history of American sports. He is also a master negotiator. It’s said that when he signed quarterback Steve Bartkowski as his first client in 1975, he realized that the NFL rules allowed him no power to bargain over salary. The Atlanta Falcons had drafted his client, so if he was going to play pro ball, it was the Falcons or nothing. So what did Steinberg do? He offered Bartkowski’s services to the Atlanta Falcons for a whopping $750,000—more than any football player had ever been paid.
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Noba Psychology: 2015 Student Video Award
The 2015 Student Video Award gives college students a chance to engage in active, creative learning by making short videos about important concepts in psychology. The most outstanding entries will become part of the Noba digital textbook to be viewed by other psychology students around the world. The focus in 2015 is Social Influence. We challenge students to choose a central concept from one of the online modules below and bring it to life in engaging and memorable ways. Noba will award $6,000 for the top honor and $3,000 and $1,000 awards for the second and third place submissions, respectively.
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Better Teamwork Comes From Facing Challenges
From basketball to brain surgery, people can accomplish more working together as a team than they ever could by themselves. As Aristotle famously put it, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” In an article recently published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, psychological scientist Jamie C. Gorman of Texas Tech University outlined new research that is improving our understanding of the cognitive and environmental factors that allow people to work together effectively in teams. Previous studies have shown that shared knowledge between individuals enhances coordination within a team. These improvements in coordination, in turn, boost the team’s performance.
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What if Age Is Nothing but a Mind-Set?
The New York Times: One day in the fall of 1981, eight men in their 70s stepped out of a van in front of a converted monastery in New Hampshire. They shuffled forward, a few of them arthritically stooped, a couple with canes. Then they passed through the door and entered a time warp. Perry Como crooned on a vintage radio. Ed Sullivan welcomed guests on a black-and-white TV. Everything inside — including the books on the shelves and the magazines lying around — were designed to conjure 1959. This was to be the men’s home for five days as they participated in a radical experiment, cooked up by a young psychologist named Ellen Langer.
