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That Impulsive, Moody Preschooler May Grow Up to Be a Problem Gambler
Give me the child at 3 and I will give you the adult compulsive gambler. That is the striking finding of a new study in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science. Based on tests of over 900 individuals beginning in toddlerhood, the study found that “people who were rated at age three as being more restless, inattentive, oppositional, and moody than other three-year old children were twice as likely to grow up to have problems with gambling as adults three decades later,” says psychologist Wendy S. Slutske of University of Missouri, who conducted the study with Terrie E.
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Helping the Earth Through Understanding Human Psychology
How do people take in information about how humans affect the Earth? What influences the decisions they make and the perspectives they accept? Journal articles and video of psychological scientists talking with the Dalai Lama show how psychological science can help us create a healthier planet. How Human Decisions Impact the Earth Elke Weber, Center for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University, and other behavioral and environmental scientists discussed decision-making and the environment with the Dalai Lama at the 23rd Mind and Life Meeting in Dharamsala, India in November 2011.
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Does being needy in a relationship make you feel colder?
Yahoo! Canada: The next time you reach for that warm sweater, or pine for some hot comfort food, you might wonder whether you suffer from attachment anxiety. In a report called "Warm Thoughts: Attachment Anxiety and Sensitivity to Temperature Cues," published in Psychological Science, Ohio University psychology professor Matthew Vess, shows how people with attachment issues are especially sensitive to temperature cues. In the first of two studies outlined in the report, a group of 56 people tested to measure their levels of anxiety in relationships.
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Tromper son cerveau pour être meilleur au golf
Le Figaro: Des chercheurs américains en sciences cognitives ont découvert un étrange effet de perception qui peut être utile au golf. Il suffit d'imaginer que le trou sur le green est plus large qu'il ne l'est vraiment pour améliorer de 10 % les chances de faire entrer la balle dans le trou. Les golfeurs le savent bien: c'est au petit jeu que se fait la différence! L'étude qui vient d'être publiée dans Psychological Science risque donc d'intéresser plus d'un acharné du green. Elle montre en effet que l'on peut améliorer son putting par le simple jeu de l'imagination. «Les joueurs améliorent leurs putts quand ils ont l'illusion que le trou est plus large» explique Jessica K.
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The Innate Irresistibility of Film
Scientific American: When I was seven years old, my mom took me to see Curly Sue. Though I don’t remember much of the movie, two scenes made quite the impression: the first, when James Belushi asks Alisan Porter to hit him on the head with a baseball bat, and the second, when Bill, Sue, and Grey sit in the 3-D movie theater. At first glance, that second one doesn’t seem to pack quite the same punch–insert pun grimace here–as a little girl swinging a huge bat at a man’s forehead. But I found it irresistible. A wide shot of the entire movie theater, and all of the faces—in 3-D glasses, of course—moving and reacting in perfect unison. Heads swerve left. Heads swerve right. Gasps. Ducks.
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How WebMD convinces us we’re dying
The Washington Post: We’ve all, at some point, likely done it: Felt under the weather, Googled the symptoms and, moments later, become convinced that it could be a life-threatening illness. Sixty percent of Americans, after all, get health care information online. New research in this month’s Psychological Science sheds some light on why, exactly, reading a description of brain cancer might quickly convince us we have it. In the study, psychologists created a fictional thyroid cancer and had subjects read descriptions of its symptoms. Some had the very general symptoms, things like fatigue and weight fluctuation, grouped together at the start.
