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Birth of a Science
Psychology just wouldn’t be the same without William James, known as the father of modern American psychology. He initially earned a degree at Harvard Medical School, but rather than practice medicine, James wandered into the fields of philosophy and psychology. He acknowledged that he was a newbie, writing that “I never had any philosophic instruction, the first lecture on psychology I ever heard being the first I ever gave.” But that didn’t stop James. A prolific writer, he published books and essays on topics ranging from emotion theory to free will, and wrote up until the day he died.
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How Your Brain Reacts To Mistakes Depends On Your Mindset
“Whether you think you can or think you can’t—you’re right,” said Henry Ford. A new study, to be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that people who think they can learn from their mistakes have a different brain reaction to mistakes than people who think intelligence is fixed. “One big difference between people who think intelligence is malleable and those who think intelligence is fixed is how they respond to mistakes,” says Jason S. Moser, of Michigan State University, who collaborated on the new study with Hans S. Schroder, Carrie Heeter, Tim P. Moran, and Yu-Hao Lee.
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Goldie Hawn Plunges into Brain Science
Scientific American: Aspen, Colorado. When I arrived at the Aspen Meadows Resort for the Second Annual Aspen Brain Forum last Thursday evening, Goldie Hawn was getting out of a vehicle near the entrance. I knew she was about to give the keynote address, but I was startled to practically run into the actress. A grandmother now, Hawn looked fabulous in over-the-knee black leather boots and a chunky silver belt strung around a black miniskirt. It wasn’t so much her looks, though, that made her instantly recognizable. Her trademark laugh and general effervescence mark her like a strobe light, quite visible even in the bright Colorado sun.
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Everybody Thinks They’re Typical: Seeing Yourself in Others
The Atlantic: Who's the more typical American, Bill Clinton or Barack Obama? According to a European study, the answer depends on who's answering the question. How people see themselves is a potent force that affects how they see others. The study posed the question of what the typical European man looked like to natives of Germany and Portugal. Not surprisingly, the Germans thought that the typical European looked more German, while the Portuguese thought that the typical European had a distinctly Portuguese cast. Other studies have shown that people who belong to a group think that a typical group member has characteristics similar to their own. But those studies were done using words.
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Les babouins apprennent l’analogie
La Marseillaise: Une équipe du laboratoire de psychologie cognitive (CNRS/Université de Provence), dirigée par Joël Fagot associée au chercheur américain Roger Tompson du Franklin & Marshall College est parvenue à prouver la capacité au « raisonnement » par analogie. « Cette publication dans la revue Psychological Science est une grande avancée, puisque jusque-là cette manifestation d’intelligence abstraite n’avait pu être démontrée de manière aussi claire que chez des chimpanzés ayant auparavant appris de l’homme une forme de langage. Nous avons obtenu ce résultat avec des babouins », explique Joël Fagot.
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Newly divorced
Democrat and Chronicle: Researchers took a look at several positive characteristics people might have — self-esteem, optimism, ease with relationships. They found that self-compassion is the one that can help newly divorced people the most. Self-compassion — a combination of kindness toward oneself, recognition of common humanity and the ability to let painful emotions pass — "can promote resilience and positive outcomes in the face of divorce," say the University of Arizona researchers. "This study opens a window for how we can potentially cultivate self-compassion among recently separated adults," says David Sbarra, co-author of the study published in the journal Psychological Science.
