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Post-Prozac Nation: The Science and History of Treating Depression
The New York Times: Few medicines, in the history of pharmaceuticals, have been greeted with as much exultation as a green-and-white pill containing 20 milligrams of fluoxetine hydrochloride — the chemical we know as Prozac. In her 1994 book “Prozac Nation,” Elizabeth Wurtzel wrote of a nearly transcendental experience on the drug. Before she began treatment with antidepressants, she was living in “a computer program of total negativity . . . an absence of affect, absence of feeling, absence of response, absence of interest.” She floated from one “suicidal reverie” to the next. Yet, just a few weeks after starting Prozac, her life was transformed.
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Q & A With Psychological Scientist Linda Bartoshuk
APS Past President Linda Bartoshuk is a leading taste researcher at the University of Florida. We invited our Facebook and Twitter followers to ask Bartoshuk questions about her research – here is what she had to say: Is there a link between supertasters and people who have phantom taste, since the more taste buds you have the stronger some tastes are? This is a wonderful question and I wish we had the data to answer it. Phantom tastes are created in the brain by release of inhibition. That is, normally taste input from one taste nerve inhibits input from other taste nerves.
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Can You Instill Mental Toughness?
TIME: To be mentally tough is to resist the urge to give up in the face of failure, to maintain focus and determination in pursuit of one’s goals, and to emerge from adversity even stronger than before. Psychologists claim that almost everyone can benefit from strengthening these skills, even those people we might consider paragons of mental toughness: army drill sergeants. The U.S. military is now implementing a resilience-building program, designed by a team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, intended to make soldiers as rugged in mind as they are in body.
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Brainstorming: An idea past its prime
The Washington Post: Our lives are cluttered with unnecessary traditions, ideas and institutions. Warm weather came early this year, but there's still time for a good spring cleaning. After purging old receipts, broken appliances and unloved outfits, what else should we toss? Outlook asked 10 writers what they thought we'd be better off without. From the Cabinet to premium gas to chick flicks, here are their picks. Brainstorming is probably the most widely used creativity technique in the world, employed in design firms and science labs, movie studios and classrooms.
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A Facial Theory of Politics
The New York Times: HOW important is a political candidate’s appearance? We’re all worldly enough to understand that looks matter. You probably know about the famous 1960 presidential debate between an unshaven and tired Richard Nixon and a tanned and rested John F. Kennedy: those who watched on television generally thought Kennedy won the debate, while those who listened over the radio overwhelmingly favored Nixon. Still, even the most jaded politico assumes that appearance is a relatively small factor — and one that we are basically aware of. Everyone knew that part of Kennedy’s appeal was how he looked. But recent research suggests that we may need to adopt a more cynical attitude.
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Using a Foreign Language Helps Decision-Making
If you think that decisions are based only on the evidence presented, think again. In fact, think about the question in a different language, assessing the risks inherent in making decisions. Your reactions may be surprising. In a study that appears in the current issue of Psychological Science, a publication of the Association for Psychological Science, researchers at the University of Chicago have found that people make more analytic decisions when they think through a problem in their non-native tongue. These findings have implications in many arenas but especially for people doing business in a global economy.
