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What We Find Gross, and Why
The New York Times: Did you hear the one about the Texan at his first Passover Seder? He was mightily impressed with the soup. “These matzo balls sure are delicious, ma’am,” he told his hostess. “What other parts of the matzo do y’all cook with?” This old joke came to mind as I read “That’s Disgusting,” a lively look at all things revolting by Rachel Herz, a psychologist at Brown. I thought of it as Herz described an evening with friends at a pretentious restaurant, where she ordered the appetizer special, duck oysters. It turned out “oysters” was code for “testicles” — how come her dinner companions hadn’t warned her?
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Will Pay for Status
Huffington Post: There are lots of ways to show other people that you have status. I travel a lot, and the airlines treat frequent travelers specially. At the start of the boarding process, the people who fly a particular airline often get on the plane first, and are often given upgrades to first class. Everyone else on the plane has to walk by the people in first class as they get on. So, the people sitting in first class get a chance to feel special. How much is this kind of status worth?
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Memory and Learning, Researcher and Theorist
Gordon Bower is one of the premier experimental psychologists and learning theorists. Bower’s research focuses on the ways that various cognitive processes – such as imagery, emotion, and reading and language comprehension – relate to memory, learning and reasoning.
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Clinical Scientist Training Initiative
The Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology (SSCP) wishes to announce the second annual “Clinical Scientist Training Initiative” grant program. Applications are invited for small (up to $1500), non-renewable grants for training programs at the predoctoral, internship, or postdoctoral levels to launch new projects or support ongoing initiatives that are designed to more effectively integrate science and practice into their training program. Applications are due by March 31, 2012, and funds will be distributed during the summer of 2012. Application instructions are available at: https://sites.google.com/site/sscpwebsite/awards.
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Where’s My SuperHero Cape?
Woman's Day: A few days ago I talked about divorced people having a higher incidence of early death. Gee, that was swell, wasn't it? That was the bad news, though, and now for the good news: stress makes you stronger. A study done for Current Directions in Psychological Science shows that hardships make you more resilient, and better able to cope with stress in comparison to those who haven't faced as many hardships in their own lives. Mark D. Seery, Ph.D., is the study author, and a psychology professor at the University at Buffalo. He likens living through adversity to the effect of exercise making your body stronger: Read the full story: Woman's Day
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Betty White turns 90: What are her secrets to longevity?
Los Angeles Times: Betty White celebrated her 90th birthday this week, and the veteran actress is still going strong. Between appearing as Elka Ostrovsky in the TV Land sitcom "Hot in Cleveland," working with animal organizations and winning awards, she is one busy woman. We figured she must have some secret to living a long, full and productive life that the rest of us need to know. So we talked to Howard Friedman, coauthor of "The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study" (Hudson Street Press, 2011) to find out what lessons we can learn from White. Friedman is also a distinguished professor of psychology at UC Riverside.
