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Are Two Heads Really Better Than One?
Forbes: Group thinking has been a popular topic in behavioral research for a long time, particularly so in the last couple of decades. The judgment of one person can be called into question for a hundred different reasons – everything from preexisting beliefs to confirmation bias and beyond. But if you add another mind to the mix, then theoretically a buffer against some of those biases has been introduced, and better judgments should result. Or so the theory goes.
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Essere materialisti rende depressi
La Stampa: La domanda è sempre la solita: i soldi fanno la felicità? E la risposta non sempre è la solita, tanto che, alla fine, non si è mai capito per davvero. Ma se i soldi sono la felicità di qualcuno e la rovina per qualcun altro, secondo uno studio l’essere focalizzato sul materialismo è invece un fattore di depressione, asocialità ed egoismo. Avere dunque in testa i beni materiali, il possedere sempre di più, lo scalare le classi sociali ha un impatto sulla salute mentale e, secondo gli scienziati, anche sulla salute dell’ambiente.
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The Psychological Science of Relationships – News Brief
Association for Psychological Science 202-293-9300 (April 16, 2012) -- Our relationships with others are an essential part of everyday life, but that doesn’t mean that understanding and getting along with other people is easy. Here is some of the latest research on the mechanisms that drive our social interactions from the journal Psychological Science. ********** You Give Me the Chills: Embodied Reactions to Inappropriate Amounts of Behavioral Mimicry Lead author: N. Pontus Leander - University of Groningen – [email protected] – in press There are some people who just give us ‘the chills,’ even though they seem perfectly polite and pleasant.
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It’s Not a Tumor! The Psychology Behind Cyberchondria
Newsweek: It’s a familiar story. You feel a little under the weather, so you rush to WebMD or MedicineNet for a self-diagnosis. When you leave the sites, you’re convinced your headache and minor nausea must indicate brain cancer. This kind of Web-enabled hypochondria, dubbed “cyberchondria,” is becoming increasingly common as more people visit the Internet instead of the doctor’s office. According to a 2009 Pew poll, 61 percent of Americans use the Internet for medical information, and other recent studies have shown wide levels of increased anxiety triggered by this habit.
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Democrats & Republicans Don’t Care Much About Each Other’s Physical Distress
Discover Magazine: As we descend into another election year, it would be nice if we could remember that people across the political divide are, er, people too. Unfortunately, that’s harder than it sounds, according to a new study in Psychological Science. Democrats and Republicans both are less likely to empathize with people from the opposite end of the political spectrum. Psychologists know that empathy is often dependent on similarity. It’s easier, for example, to empathize with Jack London’s characters when you’re reading about Yukon explorers at a snowy bus stop than on the beach in Cancun.
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Children may learn coping with poverty
United Press International: Although the poor have a higher risk of heart disease, stroke and cancer, many children who grow up poor have good health as adults, Canadian searchers say. Edith Chen and Gregory E. Miller of the University of British Columbia say poor children are less likely to have a predictable routine and a stable home; their parents may have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet and may not be able to afford to fix a leaky roof, for example. Miller and Chen propose a strategy that might reduce stress and improve health they call "shift-and-persist." The first part, shift, means reappraising things that are stressful.
