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Reappraisal Defuses Strong Emotional Responses to Israel-Palestine Conflict
Reappraisal is a widely-used cognitive strategy that can help people to regulate their reactions to emotionally charged events. Now, new research suggests that reappraisal may even be effective in changing people’s emotional responses in the context of one of the most intractable conflicts worldwide: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Negative intergroup emotions play a crucial role in decisions that perpetuate intractable conflicts,” observes lead researcher Eran Halperin of the New School of Psychology at the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel.
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Few Friends or Many: Which Is Best?
LiveScience: Whether one has a small, cozy group of friends or a larger, more boisterous gaggle may depend on individual personalities and circumstances, but new research suggests when deciding which type is best, socioeconomic conditions are key. "In the age of Facebook, many Americans seem to opt for a broad, shallow networking strategy," write Shigehiro Oishi of the University of Virginia and Selin Kesebir of the London Business School last week in the journal Psychological Science.
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Newtown, Conn., Elementary School Shooting: Kids React Differently Than Adults
ABC: When even adults are left speechless by traumatic events, it's hard to imagine what's going on in the mind of a child. Adults often gorge on media images -- trying to glean facts, gain perspective, to make sense out of a senseless event. But for children, it can have the opposite effect. After the deadly rampage at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., psychologists and pediatricians are strongly urging parents to shield their school-age children from too much exposure to the news. ... "A number of children were traumatized who didn't have direct contact with 9/11, but rather watched the media extensively," said Dr.
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Neuroscientist Probes the Mind for Clues to End Conflicts
Scientific American Mind: Could neuroscience hold the key to breaking down psychological barriers between groups in conflict? In this month's issue of Scientific American, contributor Gareth Cook interviews Rebecca Saxe, an associate professor of cognitive neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, about her work applying "theory of mind" to the discord between Palestinians and Israelis as well as conflicts between Arizonans who are Mexican immigrants and those who are U.S. citizens. Theory of mind is a concept used to describe the capacity to deduce what someone else is thinking or feeling.
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More Dads Buy the Toys, So Barbie, and Stores, Get Makeovers
The New York Times: Barbies are for girls and construction sets are for boys. Or are they? For the first time in Barbie’s more than 50-year history, Mattel is introducing a Barbie construction set that underscores a huge shift in the marketplace. Fathers are doing more of the family shopping just as girls are being encouraged more than ever by hypervigilant parents to play with toys (as boys already do) that develop math and science skills early on. It’s a combination that not only has Barbie building luxury mansions — they are pink, of course — but Lego promoting a line of pastel construction toys called Friends that is an early Christmas season hit.
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Ekel macht scharfsichtig (Disgust makes us perceptive)
ORF Austria: Bestimmte Gerüche, der Anblick menschlicher Ausscheidungen oder von verdorbenen Speisen rufen bei Menschen Ekel hervor, was bis zu Brechreiz und Übelkeit führen kann. Der starke körperliche Widerwillen ist aus evolutionärer Sicht sinnvoll. Er schützt uns vor Krankheiten und Vergiftungen. Laut den Forschern um Gary Sherman von der Harvard University ist dieser Schutzmechanismus vermutlich mit ein Grund dafür, dass wir schmutzige Dinge generell nicht so gern mögen. Deswegen hätten wir es lieber hell und sauber, in bestimmten Bereichen am liebsten Weiß, bspw. in Badezimmern oder Operationssälen. Die Gleichsetzung von Helligkeit und Reinheit ist Sherman zufolge kulturübergreifend.
