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No Conflict: Transparency and Morals
Consider this scenario: You have been sick for some time, more debilitated by the month, and doctors are scratching their heads. Finally, in pain and exhausted, you find a specialist who figures it out. Your ailment is very serious, but the good news is that it can be treated with a new drug. The doctor writes a prescription, but as he hands it to you, he says: “Just so you know, the company that makes this drug also funds a research project of mine.” This is a classic conflict-of-interest, and most people would applaud this physician for voluntarily disclosing his personal interest here.
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New Research from Clinical Psychological Science
Read about the latest research in Clinical Psychological Science: Impaired Decision Making in Alzheimer's Disease: A Deficit of Cognitive Strategy Selection? Pascal Hot, Kylee T. Ramdeen, Céline Borg, Thierry Bollon, and Pascal Couturier People with Alzheimer's disease often have trouble choosing the best decision-making strategy. Could uncertainty about their problem-solving abilities lead people with Alzheimer's to adopt poor decision-making strategies? Participants with and without Alzheimer's watched a film clip meant to induce a positive or a neutral emotional state and then completed the Iowa Gambling Task.
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Emotional Labor Costs
Anybody who has worked in a customer-service position knows how difficult it can be to maintain a smile and good humor in the face of an angry client or customer. In fact, the effort may be more costly than we realize. Alicia A. Grandey, an industrial-organizational psychologist at Pennsylvania State University, has spent a good part of her career studying “emotional labor”—the process of altering one’s behavior or disposition to meet an employer’s expectations. For workers in jobs that require stressful interactions with superiors, co-workers, or customers, the effects of emotional labor can create considerable internal turmoil.
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How to Save More Money: It’s a Matter of Time
The Huffington Post: Americans are living precarious lives. Nearly half of all families -- many with homes and cars and jobs -- are one misfortune away from financial disaster. A medical emergency or even a temporary loss of employment could gobble up their meager savings in six months or less. One in four Americans has zero savings. Many of these people are approaching retirement age, but they will never be able to retire the way they once imagined. There are many reasons for this dire financial situation, but one important one is that Americans simply don't put enough money aside.
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Want To Feel 5 Years Older? Just Take A Memory Test
NPR: Researchers in a memory lab at Texas A&M University noticed that all the older people coming in as volunteers were really worried about how they'd do. So the scientists decided to measure how taking a memory test affects a person's subjective sense of age. Before the test, the 22 participants felt pretty darned good. Even though their average age was 75, they said they felt about 58. Then they were given a list of 30 nouns, told to study them for two minutes, and then asked to recall as many of them as they could in three minutes. The participants did fine on the memory test.
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Hidden Metaphors Get under Our Skin
Scientific American Mind: Look around. Do you see four walls or an expansive vista? The answer could influence your ability to think creatively. A growing body of research suggests that our sensory experiences can trigger metaphorical thinking, influencing our insights and behavior without us even realizing it. New research reveals ways we might be able to harness these subconscious forces. “If you're actively touching an object with the expectation that it will change your view of a situation, it might not work right away,” explains Joshua Ackerman, a psychologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a co-author of the smoothness study.
