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2 Things You Can Do To Make Experiences Less Painful, According To Experts
Stress, challenges and failure are a part of life, but how we emotionally respond to them can shape our future. As Shakespeare put it, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” — an observation that reflects the power of an emotion-regulation strategy psychologists call cognitive reappraisal or reframing. Cognitive reappraisal is “magical” because it showcases “an almost infinite capacity that humans have to change their own emotional experiences,” said Iris Mauss, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley.
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A 6-Year Research Project Found a Surprisingly Simple Route to Happiness
“Let’s stop confusing humanity to think that it’s more difficult than it really is, and give them much clearer guidelines of how to do this,” says psychology professor Todd Kashdan, who runs the Well-Being Lab at George Mason University. “Maybe what we need to reduce all the difficulties internally that people have is … what Anthony’s doing, which is basically have people outward-focused on what do you want to do with your limited time today, this week, this month.
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Unconscious Cognitive Processes May Fuel Election Fraud Beliefs
A new study shows that how we process information, in addition to party allegiances, can contribute to beliefs of vote tampering.
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How Young People Learn to Be Unhappy
Why do so many young people have mental-health problems? The growing focus on students’ anxiety and depression, while well-intentioned, may be making psychological distress seem inevitable. Instead of fostering a supportive community for adolescent and young-adult students with mental-health concerns, we may be reinforcing a false and destructive belief that misery is universal among young people. Students regularly post self-deprecating social-media comments about how stressed they are, detailing their deteriorating mental health and inability to stop doomscrolling. These declarations are more than venting or seeking social support. For some, they’ve become signals of virtue.
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The Great Ghosting Paradox
... Some of this was projection. “We love an avatar more than a specific being,” Pettman writes, “a gestalt abstraction, lifted from all the love stories we’ve imbibed since childhood.” I wanted this guy to be the sort of guy who liked and wanted me. As for my irritation when he reappeared? Research shows that people who acknowledge or apologize for rejection risk activating the rejectee’s ire, rather than alleviating hurt feelings. Gili Freedman, a social psychologist who has studied both ghosting and apologies, told me that although apologies after a ghosting can in some cases provide closure, ghostees can also interpret ghosters’ apologies as insincere or self-serving.
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How to Think, Not What to Think
Across the country, people are questioning the value and role of higher education, and institutions—particularly the elite ones—are experiencing a crisis in public trust. On top of that, tech titans are convinced that AI will break higher education, while many observers lament its corrupting influence and ask whether the “mind-expanding purpose and qualities of a university,” as one historian of education put it recently, are gone forever. The idea that higher education has outlived its usefulness to society, however, requires taking an astonishingly narrow view of the true purpose of the university. Higher education is not merely the transfer of knowledge.
