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George A. Miller, a Pioneer in Cognitive Psychology, Is Dead at 92
The New York Times: Psychological research was in a kind of rut in 1955 when George A. Miller, a professor at Harvard, delivered a paper titled “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two,” which helped set off an explosion of new thinking about thinking and opened a new field of research known as cognitive psychology. The dominant form of psychological study at the time, behaviorism, had rejected Freud’s theories of “the mind” as too intangible, untestable and vaguely mystical. Its researchers instead studied behavior in laboratories, observing and recording test subjects’ responses to carefully administered stimuli. Mainly, they studied rats. Dr.
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Why men (yes, men) are better multitaskers
We should all be forgiven for believing that women are good at multitasking, and far superior to men. After all, that’s the popular image that has been in circulation for some time. In this depiction, a vibrant 30-something woman, still in her business suit after a demanding day at the office, is cooking a gourmet meal, balancing a toddler on her hip, all while talking on the phone, presumably raising money for a local charity. Popular books, like Why Men Can Only Do One Thing at a Time and Women Never Stop Talking, reinforce the idea that men are incapable of matching women’s cognitive balancing act.
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Did Your Brain Make You Do It?
The New York Times: ARE you responsible for your behavior if your brain “made you do it”? Often we think not. For example, research now suggests that the brain’s frontal lobes, which are crucial for self-control, are not yet mature in adolescents. This finding has helped shape attitudes about whether young people are fully responsible for their actions. In 2005, when the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty for juveniles was unconstitutional, its decision explicitly took into consideration that “parts of the brain involved in behavior control continue to mature through late adolescence.” Similar reasoning is often applied to behavior arising from chemical imbalances in the brain.
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The Karmic Connection: Do We Expect Good Fortune After Helping Others?
The Huffington Post: In general, what goes around comes around. If you're nice to people, good things come your way, but if you're jagoff, look out (or, as I like to say, "don't put shit on a boomerang.") These expectations make sense in social situations, where people can retaliate or return favors, and where reputation matters. But, as I explain in chapter 7 of my new book, The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking, we expect the universe to play by the same rules -- to manifest karma. And new research indicates that when we want something from the universe, we'll invest in karma by doing a good deed. People learn from an early age that good deeds are rewarded and bad deeds are punished.
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People with dualist beliefs less likely to engage in healthy behaviours
Asian News International: Washington: Researchers say dualist beliefs, that is, believing that the brain and the mind are two separate entities, can effect how we think and behave in everyday life. Across five related studies, researchers Matthias Forstmann, Pascal Burgmer, and Thomas Mussweiler of the University of Cologne, Germany, found that people primed with dualist beliefs had more reckless attitudes toward health and exercise, and also preferred (and ate) a less healthy diet than those who were primed with physicalist beliefs. Furthermore, they found that the relationship also worked in the other direction.
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Are climate sceptics more likely to be conspiracy theorists?
The Guardian: It's time to come clean: climate change is a hoax. And the moon landings were faked, 9/11 was an inside job, and the CIA is hiding the identity of the gunman on the grassy knoll. It might seem odd to lump climate change – a scientific theory supported by thousands of peer-reviewed papers and hundreds of independent lines of evidence – with conspiracy theories like these. But new research to be published in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science has found a link between the endorsement of conspiracy theories and the rejection of established facts about climate science.
