-
Your Fellow Diners’ Size May Affect How Much You Eat
NPR: Your dining companion may have more influence over your eating habits than you realize. We've known that people often have friends with similar body weights, but new research suggests that dining with an overweight companion may make us more likely to eat more unhealthful food. A study in the appropriately named journal Appetite finds that undergraduates who were offered pasta and salad while eating near a 5-foot-5-inch, 126-pound woman would eat more pasta when she was zipped into a fat suit adding 50 pounds, or about 8 points, to her body mass index.
-
The Enforcers of the Death Penalty
The Atlantic: It was the late 70s, and Kathleen Dennehy was working at Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Concord, the oldest running men's prison in the state. Opened in 1878, it has a vault filled with corrections records dating back to the turn of the century, both from the now-demolished state prison that preceded it and from MCI-Concord's prison cemetery. The weathered papers include death certificates, sentencing documents, and other records, including those of Sacco and Vanzetti, the famous 20's anarchists ostensibly sentenced to death for first-degree murder, but whose larger crime was being Italian.
-
Helping Kids Take Criticism Constructively (Even When It Isn’t Constructive)
The New York Times: Parents and teachers spend an enormous amount of time thinking about how to frame feedback for kids. We’re torn between the desire to teach and the urge to protect children from pain. In an attempt to make feedback palatable, we dress it up in pretty outfits, sand down its sharp corners and construct feedback sandwiches of critical meat between slices of fluffy and comforting praise. We all face criticism, both constructive and destructive, but how we deal with that criticism determines whether we persevere and learn from experience or crumple under the weight of our own self-loathing and despair.
-
Intake of Alcohol Makes Smiles Contagious Among Men
Science World Report: A latest study by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh reveals that in men alcohol boosts sensitivity to pleasant social behavior like smiles, The study also highlights the risk factors that trigger the drinking problem among men. They based their finding on the evaluation of 720 healthy social drinkers of ages 21-28. A study conducted earlier showed that compared to women, men are nearly 50 percent more likely to consume alcohol and most of the drinking problems also occur among men in social settings.
-
Memories of Pain During Childbirth Tied to Intensity Rather than Length of Labor
Childbirth is physically intense and, for many women, it is the most painful experience they will have. And yet, new research shows that the amount of time a woman spends in labor doesn’t seem to impact how she remembers her labor pain afterwards. The research, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, reveals that the peak and end levels of pain women experienced, and whether they received an epidural, impacted their recall of labor pain afterward.
-
Preventing Worker Burnout Can Boost The Bottom Line
NPR: Burnout at work seems like a fact of life, especially with employers cutting back on leave benefits. But some companies are trying novel fixes. In addition to boosting morale, some employers say, eliminating burnout can increase productivity and profitability. At Aptify, a Virginia software company, burnout was a problem a few years ago. Projects demanded long hours, which affected motivation and morale. It's a medium-size firm, with 200 workers, but at the time, procedures seemed overly corporate and cumbersome.
