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How to Beat Writer’s Block
The New Yorker: In 1920, a sixteen-year-old Graham Greene decided that, after “104 weeks of monotony, humiliation, and mental pain,” he could no longer remain at Berkhamsted, the prep school where he was enrolled. He fled, leaving behind a note of resignation for his parents—his father was the school’s headmaster—, and was discovered on the heath soon after. The escape proved so troubling to his family that it led to a six-month stint in psychotherapy. It was a fortuitous turn in Greene’s life.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: To Live Among Like-Minded Others: Exploring the Links Between Person-City Personality Fit and Self-Esteem Wiebke Bleidorn, Felix Schönbrodt, Jochen E. Gebauer, Peter J. Rentfrow, Jeff Potter, and Samuel D. Gosling Does it matter if your personality meshes with the personality of the city in which you live? More than 500,000 participants from 860 cities across the United States were assessed for their Big Five personality traits, religiosity, and self-esteem. City-level personality was calculated from the personality scores for each trait within each city.
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Cognition at the Speed of (LED) Lights
Since the 1970s, overhead fluorescent lighting has been standard in most office buildings. But, organizations may want to start swapping out their fluorescent lights for newer LED technology. Not only do LEDs use less power and last longer than conventional fluorescent lighting – new research suggests they hold benefits for mood and cognition. Breanne Hawes and colleagues from the Cognitive Science Team at the United States Army Natick Soldier Research Development and Engineering Center and Tufts University compared the effects of different types of light on mood, perception, and cognition in military personnel.
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Is ‘Grit’ Doomed To Be The New Self-Esteem?
NPR: In just a few short weeks, students in California will be taking high-stakes tests. But the tests won't just cover math, reading and science. Students will also be responding to survey statements like "I usually finish what I start," or "I can do anything if I try." A group of big-city districts there is among the first to try to measure students' self-control, empathy and other social and emotional skills — and to hold schools accountable for the answers. ... "The enthusiasm is getting ahead of the science," Angela Duckworth, the psychologist and MacArthur Fellow most associated with the concept of grit, told me in May.
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Inside Out: Behind-the-Scenes Science With Dacher Keltner, PhD
Psi Chi: Six years ago, Pete Docter (the director of Pixar’s Monsters, Inc and Up) made a phone call to explain his ideas for a film about how emotions shape people’s interior lives and relationships with others. On the other end of the call was Dacher Keltner, PhD, an emotion psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Keltner agreed that these would be great topics for a movie and became a major consultant throughout the development of Pixar’s Inside Out. Today, he discusses his interactions with Pixar, as well as some of the scientific thought that went into this highly successful and well-liked 2015 film. In his own words, Dr.
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The Brain Likes Categories. Where Should It Put Mixed-Race People?
NPR: Humans like to place things in categories and can struggle when things can't easily be categorized. That also applies to people, a study finds, and the brain's visual biases may play a role in perceptions of mixed-race people. The study, published in Psychological Science on Monday, asked people to sort images of people as either white or black, but it included multiracial faces in the mix, too. There has been much less research into attitudes about mixed-race people, even though they are the fastest-growing racial group in the United States. Read the whole story: NPR
