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Food May Be Addicting for Some
The Wall Street Journal: A new study suggests that people who struggle to say no to chocolate, french fries or other junk food suffer from something more insidious than lack of willpower: They may actually have an addiction. Using a high-tech scan to observe the brains of pathological eaters versus normal eaters, the study found that showing a milkshake to the abnormal group was akin to dangling a cold beer in front of an alcoholic. Read the whole story: The Wall Street Journal
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In pain? Try meditation
CNN: You don't have to be a Buddhist monk to experience the health benefits of meditation. According to a new study, even a brief crash course in meditative techniques can sharply reduce a person's sensitivity to pain. In the study, researchers mildly burned 15 men and women in a lab on two separate occasions, before and after the volunteers attended four 20-minute meditation training sessions over the course of four days. During the second go-round, when the participants were instructed to meditate, they rated the exact same pain stimulus -- a 120-degree heat on their calves -- as being 57 percent less unpleasant and 40 percent less intense, on average. Read the whole story: CNN
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When a woman should act like a man
CNN: Tilia Wong worked in construction management before going to business school and got used to thinking of herself as a businesswoman who knew how to keep assertive behavior under wraps. "I'm a 24-year-old Asian girl telling a 55-year-old white guy what to do. I had to tone it down," she said of her workplace experience. Fast forward to this year, when Wong began an MBA at Stanford University and had to reassess herself because classmates told her she was actually on the aggressive end of the spectrum. Read the whole story: CNN
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When Thoughts Weigh Heavy: Outsmarting the Liars
One of my guilty pleasures is the long-running TV show NCIS, a drama focused on the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. The hero is a former Marine, now Special Agent Jethro Gibbs, a disciplined detective with an uncanny ability to observe and interrogate criminal suspects. He doesn’t say much or display much emotion in the interrogation room—indeed his cool demeanor is his trademark—yet he is a keen lie spotter. Psychological scientists are fascinated by real-life versions of the fictional Gibbs. Detecting lies and liars is essential to effective policing and prosecution of criminals, but it’s maddeningly difficult.
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Greased Palm Psychology: Collectivism and Bribery
Cultures that downplay self-determination and stress shared responsibility may serve as a catalyst for passing money under the table, a study suggests.
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Heartache or headache, pain process is similar, studies find
Los Angeles Times: The brain's shared pain network illustrates the link between body and mind, and it may help explain how emotional ups or downs affect health too. Across cultures and language divides, people talk about the sting of social rejection as if it were a physical pain. We feel "burned" by a partner's infidelity, "wounded" by a friend's harsh words, "crushed" when a loved one fails us, "heartache" when spurned by a lover. There's a reason for that linguistic conflation, says a growing community of pain researchers: In our brains too, physical and social pain share much the same neural circuitry.
