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Lessons From Cloud Nine
The Wall Street Journal: In recent years, economists and psychologists have joined forces to unravel the secrets of human happiness. "The Happiness Equation" is one researcher's attempt to share his field's discoveries with a broad audience. Nick Powdthavee, an economist at the University of York, deftly explains the main determinants of happiness: the small effect of money, the great effect of marriage and friends, the massive effect of personality. Even extremely good news (such as winning the lottery) and extremely bad news (such as losing a spouse) rarely changes an individual's happiness for more than a couple of years. Mr.
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Spoiler Alert: Knowing the ending enhances the story
CTV News: Reading the final chapter of a book first or researching plot-spoiling movie reviews online before going to the cinema could actually enhance your entertainment experience, rather than lessen it, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego found that, quite simply, stories are not spoiled by spoilers. Just the opposite is true, in fact. When subjects in a study conducted by the university's psychology department were asked to rate their enjoyment of various stories, they almost always picked the ones where they knew the outcome ahead of time.
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For Men, ‘Culture of Honor’ Can Be Deadly
U.S. News & World Report: Psychologists call it the "culture of honor," a mostly male mindset that places a high value on defending one's reputation at any cost. But new research confirms that it's linked with high rates of accidental deaths. "People who embrace these values also report more risk-taking," explained study author Dr. Ryan Brown, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Oklahoma, in Norman. This dangerous male mindset is also more prevalent among those living in the South and West, in such states as South Carolina, Texas and Wyoming, he added. Read the whole story: U.S. News & World Report
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The Myth of Joyful Parenthood
Scientific American: Sure, the soccer uniforms, piano lessons and college tuition add up—but there is nothing like being a parent. Or so we tell ourselves, according to a study in the February issue of Psychological Science. When parents are faced with the financial costs of a child, they justify their investment by playing up parenthood’s emotional payoffs. Psychologists at the University of Waterloo in Ontario gave parents in the study a government report estimating that bringing up a child to age 18 costs more than $190,000. Then half the parents read an additional report about the financial help grown children pro-vide their parents.
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Understanding Academic Stressors
Whether it’s before a big presentation, during an exam, or after grades have been posted, at some point or another, everyone experiences stress in school. Sian Beilock’s research analyzes how stress in academic settings affects performance. She is interested in various academic stressors such as the chronic stress that a female math major might experience from the negative stereotype that “men are superior to women in math,” the pressure that most people experience while taking a high-stakes college admissions test, and the anxieties some hold about their performance in a particular academic area (e.g., math anxiety).
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Mathematic Models and Human Learning
Thomas Griffiths developed mathematical models of higher level cognition. He focuses on the abstract computational problems that underlie inductive human cognition, such as probabilistic reasoning, learning causal relationships, acquiring and using language, and inferring the structure of categories. He researches the ideal solutions to those problems using ideas from probability theory and Bayesian statistics, used to calculate the likelihood of a hypothesis. These statistical tools allow him to analyze human learning and link computer science research to artificial intelligence and machine learning.
