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Learning a New Skill Can Be Hard. Here’s How to Set Yourself Up for Success
This is one of my favorite questions to ask people: What was the last thing you taught yourself how to do? I (Rommel) like it because the answers are usually less about the actual skill and more about the motivation behind learning it. It's a question I leaned on a lot when I was booking contestants on the NPR game show Ask Me Another. But I don't really get to ask it anymore. Maybe it's because I'm in my 30s and I'm not meeting as many new people these days. The pandemic might also be a factor. Plus, Ask Me Another recently ended, and it got me thinking about my time on the show and "the question" that so often cracked people open in a really interesting way. ...
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
A sample of research on antagonism in daily life, metarepresentation and autism symptoms, computational linguistics in suicide prevention, using acoustics to predict schizotypy, a model for mental health diagnostic, and sibling alcohol use and suicide.
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Much of What You Know About Groupthink Is Wrong
Everyone knows the concept of groupthink. A tightly knit and overconfident set of decision makers form an insular echo chamber, fail to see the big picture, and end up making disastrous decisions. By now, most of us think we have a good sense of the sorts of conditions that cause groups to fall into this trap. But how good is that understanding? Let’s start with a thought experiment. If you had to guess, which of the following teams is the most likely to fall prey to the pathologies of groupthink? ...
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New Research in Psychological Science
A sample of research on working memory, counter-argumentation strategies, attitudes toward political opponents, students returning to school from juvenile detention, natural disasters and relationship satisfaction, racial labels and their implications, and how a sugar tax can decrease sugary-drink buying.
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The COVID Communication Breakdown
On paper, the U.S. federal government was well prepared for COVID-19. Personnel tasked with emergency preparedness held posts at the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the National Security Council. The executive branch had budget authority to supply the Strategic National Stockpile. There was a “pandemic playbook” for dealing with high-consequence infectious diseases. By any measure, though, the federal government botched its response to COVID-19. It mobilized slowly for a disease that was spreading rapidly.
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What Happens in the Brain When We Grieve
When we lose someone or something we love, it can feel like we've lost a part of ourselves. And for good reason—our brains are learning how to live in the world without someone we care about in it. Host Emily Kwong talks with psychologist Mary-Frances O'Connor about the process our brains go through when we experience grief. Her book, The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss, publishes February 1, 2022. ...
