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The Twitter Trap
The New York Times Magazine: Last week my wife and I told our 13-year-old daughter she could join Facebook. Within a few hours she had accumulated 171 friends, and I felt a little as if I had passed my child a pipe of crystal meth. I don’t mean to be a spoilsport, and I don’t think I’m a Luddite. I edit a newspaper that has embraced new media with creative, prizewinning gusto. I get that the Web reaches and engages a vast, global audience, that it invites participation and facilitates — up to a point — newsgathering. But before we succumb to digital idolatry, we should consider that innovation often comes at a price. And sometimes I wonder if the price is a piece of ourselves.
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New study sheds light on ‘dark side of happiness’
The Boston Globe: The “pursuit of happiness’’ has been something Americans have valued ever since the Founding Fathers inserted it into the Declaration of Independence. Yet some psychologists now question whether happiness is, indeed, a worthwhile goal, since new findings suggest the pursuit could actually make us more unhappy. In a review paper published last week in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, researchers define what they call the “dark side of happiness’’: feeling happy all the time can destroy relationships and careers, while avidly pursuing happiness is bound to lead to disappointment. Read the whole story: The Boston Globe
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Your Culture May Influence Your Perception of Death
Contemplating mortality can be terrifying. But not everyone responds to that terror in the same way. Now, a new study which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds cultural differences in how people respond to mortality. European-Americans get worried and try to protect their sense of self, while Asian-Americans are more likely to reach out to others. Much of the research on what psychologists call “mortality salience” – thinking about death – has been done on people of European descent, and has found that it makes people act in dramatic ways.
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Why are psychopaths so coldly callous?
The Times of India: WASHINGTON: Psychopaths' willingness to break social norms and lack of remorse may drive them to commit crimes and irresponsible behaviour but their whole orientation may have something to do with a lack of fear, say researchers. "What happens is you're born without that fear, so when your parents try to socialize you, you don't really respond appropriately because you're not scared," says co-author Patrick D Sylvers of University of Washington in a study in journal Psychological Science. Read the whole story: The Times of India
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The Good Fight
The Boston Globe: It starts in childhood: As every kindergartner learns, getting along with others is a practical virtue. From our earliest years, we start to absorb lessons of diplomacy and tact, all meant to help us navigate our surroundings without friction. Down the road, as grown-ups, we seek harmony at home and in the office. Couples who project tranquility are envied, and an unflappable attitude is often a job requirement. Fighting, meanwhile, is perceived as corrosive and stressful. But what if we’re thinking about fighting wrong? What if, as counter intuitive as it seems, certain kinds of fighting are good for us?
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Eggs, Butter, Milk – Memory Is Not Just A Shopping List!
Often, the goal of science is to show that things are not what they seem to be. But now, in an article which will be published in an upcoming issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, a veteran cognitive psychologist exhorts his colleagues in memory research to consult the truth of their own experience. “Cognitive psychologists are trying to be like physicists and chemists, which means doing controlled laboratory experiments, getting numbers out of them and explaining the numbers,” says Douglas L.
