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Conquer Phobias By Watching Someone Else Interact With What You’re Afraid Of: Study
The Huffington Post: Are you afraid of spiders? A good way to get over that fear might be to watch another person interact with a spider, and experience no harm from doing so. A new study suggests an effective way to conquer your fears could be to see someone else safely interact with the thing you're afraid of -- something called "vicarious social learning." "Information about what is dangerous and safe in our environment is often transferred from other individuals through social forms of learning," study researcher Armita Golkar, of the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, said in a statement.
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Time to Write? Go Outside
The New York Times: Fall promises crisp days with ample sunlight, a lifting of the humidity and ideal temperatures for being outdoors. This also means my writing will be getting better. Nothing coaxes jumbled thoughts into coherent sentences like sitting under a shade tree on a pleasant day. With a slight breeze blowing, birds chirping melodies, wee bugs scurrying around me and a fully charged laptop or yellow legal pad at hand, I know I’ll produce my best work. I stumbled upon my ideal writing conditions quite by accident.
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You Call That Aggressive? Not Compared to ‘Grand Theft Auto’!
Pacific Standard: Early Tuesday morning, a Londoner bought one of the first available copies of the highly anticipated, just-released Grand Theft Auto V—and was mugged on his way home. While the K word (hint: It rhymes with “pharma”) immediately comes to mind, it’s impossible to know if the assailant who made off with the game—which, The New York Times reports, begins “with an extended bout of cop killing”—was a personal fan of the crime-heavy series, or simply a thug planning to sell it on the black market. But over the past few years, a whole lot of research has found a link between playing violent video games and aggressive thoughts and behaviors.
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Smart Teenage Brains May Get Some Extra Learning Time
NPR: John Hewitt is a neuroscientist who studies the biology of intelligence. He's also a parent. Over the years, Hewitt has periodically drawn upon his scientific knowledge in making parenting decisions. "I'm a father of four children myself and I never worried too much about the environments that I was providing for my children because I thought, well, it would all work out in the end anyway — aren't the genes especially powerful?" Hewitt says. ... What Hewitt, director of the Institute for Behavioral Genetics at the University of Colorado, is talking about is a new understanding of the interplay between your genetic inheritance and how you learn from the environment.
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Warning of Potential Side Effects of a Product Can Increase Its Sales
Drug ads often warn of serious side effects, from nausea and bleeding to blindness, even death. New research suggests that, rather than scaring consumers away, these warnings can improve consumers’ opinions and increase product sales when there is a delay between seeing the ad and deciding to buy or consume the product. “Messages that warn consumers about potentially harmful side effects — presumably with the intent to nudge them to act more cautiously — can ironically backfire,” says psychological scientist Ziv Carmon of INSEAD in Singapore.
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What to Remember Before a Job Interview
It’s easy to feel nervous and awkward when applying for a new job. Unless you’re already working and a potential employer is trying to poach you, you’re essentially at the mercy of a recruiter looking at your résumé and talking with you about your qualifications. That can instill a profound sense of vulnerability. But new research has identified a possible strategy that can help job candidates improve their confidence and communication skills during the interview process. An international team of scientists recently found that you can more effectively impress recruiters by merely recalling a time when you felt powerful.
