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Some viewers may find this distressing: How watching harrowing footage on the news can bring on post-traumatic stress
The Daily Mail: With 24-hour news channels bringing a constant stream of images from far-flung conflict zones into our lives, we are increasingly able to watch global drama unfold almost minute-by-minute. But scientists say that constant exposure to distressing television footage could actually be having a long-lasting negative impact on our mental health. A study found repeated exposure to violent images following terrorist attacks and from war zones led to an increase in physical and psychological ailments among a cross-section of American viewers.
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Slow Thinking Is Wise Thinking
Nobel Prize-winning psychological scientist Daniel Kahneman called US President Barack Obama a “slow thinker.” That may sound like an insult, but it’s actually high praise. In his latest book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman describes two types of thinkers. System 1 thinkers operate automatically and quickly, with little sense of voluntary control, and little or no effort. System 2 thinkers, however, allocate attention to mental activities that demand it, and they also tend to be more deliberative. Kahneman describes President Obama as a System 2 thinker. “He is a slow thinker. He deliberates,” Kahneman said in this CNN article. “He doesn't follow his gut immediately. He considers things.
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Psychological Scientists Honored for Improbable Research
For the second year in a row, research published in Psychological Science is being recognized with the, erm, prestigious Ig Nobel Psychology Prize for scientific achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” The jocular prizes, awarded annually for studies in a number of scientific fields, honors research that is unusual, imaginative, and spurs people's interest in science, medicine, and technology. This year’s Ig Nobel–winning research was published in the December 2011 issue of Psychological Science.
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The Coattails Phenomenon: Getting Character From Others
My high school classmate Tom Gordon was everyone’s choice for least-likely-to-succeed. He drank too much and drove too fast, and got busted for petty theft again and again. He skipped school as often as he showed up, and was too undisciplined for sports or other organized activities. When he did get hired for part-time jobs, he’d either quit or get himself fired soon after. He was a loser. So imagine my bewilderment when I ran into Tom (whose name I have changed) some years later. He was sitting in a local diner, drinking coffee and reading several newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal.
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Know it all? Or perhaps you’re suffering from ‘hindsight bias’
The Telegraph: Now it is the braggarts’ turn to be found out. Scientists claim to have established that, far from being super-sleuths, such people are usually deluded. Researchers found that they are suffering from “hindsight bias”, when a person genuinely believes that they know something when in fact they are hearing or seeing it for the first time. Although the effects might seem relatively harmless, researchers claimed it could prevent people learning why something has happened or from taking advice. Prof Neal Roese, of Northwestern University in Chicago, said: “If you feel like you knew it all along, it means you won’t stop to examine why something really happened.
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The Gregarious Salesman: Death of a Stereotype
The Huffington Post: I had to buy a car recently, my first in many years, and I confess I couldn't stop thinking about Jerry Lundegaard. Jerry Lundegaard is a Minneapolis car salesman, and the central character in the Coen brothers' 1996 film classic, Fargo. He is fast-talking, weaselly, dishonest. Played to great comic effect by William H. Macy, Lundegaard is a caricature of all that we expect and fear in those who are out to sell us something. Okay, so maybe some of this is my stereotyping of car salesmen, and perhaps I'm being unfair. But like a lot of stereotypes, mine has some basis in fact. Not the inept criminal part, but certainly the blustery, glad-handing, over-the-top enthusiasm.
