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The World’s Getting Better. Here’s Why Your Brain Can’t Believe It.
Life has improved for most people around the world over the past generation, temporary pandemics aside. The rub is that you can’t get anyone to believe the good news. And the result is a toxic political environment—and the potential collapse of democratic norms if too few people feel that a stressed system is worth saving. Those on the right tend to be certain that crime and unauthorized immigration are growing out of control, in the face of statistics showing the opposite.
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It’s an Angry Time, but It Can Also Be Energizing
... It’s an angry time, all right, with political polarization at record levels, cable news and social media monetizing outrage, and the pandemic, unemployment and fury over racial injustice heating the toxic emotional stew. Mental health experts worry about rising domestic violence and drug and alcohol abuse, warning that Americans urgently need better tools to calm emotional storms. Abundant research supports the adage that holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die. Study after study links simmering aggression with heart disease — the No. 1 killer of Americans before the pandemic.
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Women and Men Still Look for the Same Things in a Partner — 30 Years Later
New European research has found that despite the change in times, men and women all around the world still look for the same things when seeking a partner that they did three decades ago. Carried out by researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, the new study asked 14,399 heterosexual participants from 45 different countries to investigate how people select their partners. The researchers wanted to see if, after 30 years of social changes in equality and attitudes, the findings of a previous study carried out back in the 1980s by one of the team, psychologist David Buss, still held up.
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Worried About Your Kids’ Social Skills Post-Lockdown?
Before the coronavirus pandemic began, Michael Munson’s 3-year-old son saw a group of close friends at his preschool at least a few times a week. When he wasn’t in school, he and his 1-year-old sister often played with other kids at the park. But ever since much of the world shut down to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, the kids have been home with Munson and his wife, both lawyers, who take turns watching them while the other works. They have tried to connect their preschooler to friends through video chats hosted by his teacher, but his response was usually to withdraw, throw tantrums or run away from the screen.
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Why Do People Avoid Facts That Could Help Them?
In our information age, an unprecedented amount of data are right at our fingertips. We run genetic tests on our unborn children to prepare for the worst. We get regular cancer screenings and monitor our health on our wrist and our phone. And we can learn about our ancestral ties and genetic predispositions with a simple swab of saliva. Yet there’s some information that many of us do not want to know.
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Isolation Causes Loneliness. What Else Can It Do To Our Bodies?
Podcast interview with APS Member Julianne Holt-Lunstad. There's a cost to staying home, too. Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a neuroscientist and social psychologist at Brigham Young University, explains the toll that social isolation can take. … Listen to full podcast at the link below.
