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Your Brain Has No Idea Where It’s Going
TIME: Want proof that your brain isn’t as smart as it assumes it is? Take this pop quiz: Say you’re standing at 42nd St. in Manhattan waiting for an uptown bus and plan to get off at 52nd St. Say a person on the opposite side of the avenue is waiting for a downtown bus and plans to get off at 32nd St. Whose trip will cover a greater distance? Neither, obviously, since they’re both 10 blocks. Now try telling your lyin’ brain that. The fact is, your trip will somehow feel like it should be shorter and the person across the street will feel the same way about the trip going in the other direction.
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Procrastinating on those taxes? Blame your genes
Los Angeles Times: New research suggests the Internal Revenue Service should expand the list of acceptable explanations for procrastinators' yearly extension requests and late tax filings. Two possibilities: "I was born this way" and "failure to evolve." Procrastination, suggests a new study, is an evolved trait that likely served humans well in a time when finding food and water and fending off prey were job one. For man in the state of nature, pondering lofty goals for an indistinct future was sure to result in an early demise. The inclination to defer unpleasant but necessary tasks appears to coexist intimately with the trait of impulsiveness.
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Global Warming Scare Tactics
The New York Times: IF you were looking for ways to increase public skepticism about global warming, you could hardly do better than the forthcoming nine-part series on climate change and natural disasters, starting this Sunday on Showtime. A trailer for “Years of Living Dangerously” is terrifying, replete with images of melting glaciers, raging wildfires and rampaging floods. “I don’t think scary is the right word,” intones one voice. “Dangerous, definitely.” Showtime’s producers undoubtedly have the best of intentions. There are serious long-term risks associated with rising greenhouse gas emissions, ranging from ocean acidification to sea-level rise to decreasing agricultural output. ...
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Why More Things Don’t Make Us Happier
The Huffington Post: It's no secret that gratitude makes us happier, while materialism can do the opposite. And now, a new study shows that lower levels of gratitude could be part of the reason for why materialistic people have decreased life satisfaction, and that gratitude could actually mediate the relationship between materialism and life satisfaction. "As we amass more and more possessions, we don't get any happier -- we simply raise our reference point," study researcher James Roberts, Ph.D., of the Hankamer School of Business at Baylor University, said in a statement. "That new 2,500-square-foot house becomes the baseline for your desires for an even bigger house.
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Procrastinators, you can blame it on genetics…tomorrow
PBS: Procrastination is in your genes, according to a study from researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “Everyone procrastinates at least sometimes,” explains psychological scientist and study author Daniel Gustavson in the journal Psychological Science. “We wanted to explore why some people procrastinate more than others and why procrastinators seem more likely to make rash actions and act without thinking.” Read the whole story: PBS
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The Psychology of Forgiving and Forgetting
The Huffington Post: Nicholas Kristoff's latest New York Times column was sad and moving. It was a tribute to Marina Keegan, an honors student and recent graduate of Yale University who turned her back on a lucrative Wall Street career -- and eloquently urged other college graduates to do the same. In an essay that was viewed a million times online, she bemoaned the squandering of young talent for the mindless accumulation of wealth. Days after her graduation, she died in a car crash. Her boyfriend, the driver, fell asleep at the wheel. Such losses are always tragic, and far too common, but that's not what got my attention.
