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The Competing Views on Competition
The New York Times: JUST before bedtime on a recent night, two toddlers marched reluctantly to the bathroom to brush their teeth. And on the way, my four-year-old son told his little sister: “I’m going to win. I’m going to win!” At toothbrushing. I have one of those, a child with an apparent competitive streak. When Milo and I play baseball, he tells me, “I’ll be the Yankees and you can be a team that they beat.” A recent article in this newspaper detailed President Obama’s own deep-seated desire to win. At a farewell gathering with a group of interns, the competitor-in-chief gave them some life advice: “When you all have kids, it’s important to let them win,” he said.
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Studies Link Students’ Boredom to Stress
Education Week: One glance, and any teacher knows the score: That student, halfway down the row, staring blankly at his tapping pen, fidgeting, sneaking glances at the wall clock roughly every 30 seconds, is practically screaming, "I'm bored!" While boredom is a perennial student complaint, emerging research shows it is more than students' not feeling entertained, but rather a "flavor of stress" that can interfere with their ability to learn and even their health. An international group of researchers argues this month in Perspectives on Psychological Science that the experience of boredom directly connects to a student's inability to focus attention. Read the whole story: Education Week
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A ’30 Rock’ Player Sells Himself to Science for ‘The Lutz Experiment’
The New York Times: To comedy fans, John Lutz is an unlikely cult figure — a performer at improv theaters and a former writer at “Saturday Night Live” who now plays an eponymous, endearingly silly sketch writer on “30 Rock.” “I don’t have any title over there, except for Lutz,” he said recently. “They gave me my own name.” To Jamil Zaki, an assistant professor in the psychology department of Stanford University, Mr. Lutz is something entirely different: “the perfect lab rat,” Dr. Zaki said. The men are now collaborators on a new book tentatively titled “The Lutz Experiment,” which was recently acquired by the Free Press imprint of Simon & Schuster.
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Being selfish makes us happy – so long as we avoid the guilt
The Telegraph: Although we are taught the benefits of kindness and altruism, it seems we are happiest when simply told to pursue our own self-interest. Researchers found the key to contentment is feeling we have no choice but to be selfish. In contrast, the study, carried out by psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania, found that those who actively choose a selfish path usually have to battle with guilt. They speculated that because we're taught as children that 'sharing means caring', if we make a decision out of self-interest, we often feel bad for prioritising ourselves over others. But that frequently means we forego the things we know will make us happy.
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Police Prejudice Is Not What You Think
Police photo provided by Shutterstock. Many police departments have a problem with prejudice — it’s a common assumption supported by empirical research. But when a team of psychological scientists led by Juliette Gatto of Blaise Pascal University, France, took a close look at prejudice in new police recruits, officers with a year of training, and a control group from the general population, they discovered unexpected nuances. The results were published in the European Journal of Social Psychology.
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Does True Love Wait? Age of First Sexual Experience Predicts Romantic Outcomes in Adulthood
The timing of a person’s first experience with sexual intercourse predicts the quality and stability of their romantic relationships in young adulthood.
