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Why Eye Contact Can Fail To Win People Over
NPR: Pop psychology holds that to connect with someone, you should look deep into their eyes. The more you look, the more persuasive you'll be. But that may work only when your audience already agrees with you. ... "Eye contact is clearly used in many situations to signal attraction, love and even agreement," Frances Chen, an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia and lead author of the study, told Shots. But forcing someone to look into your eyes could backfire if you're trying to change their opinion, Chen says. "Think about parents saying, 'Look at me when I'm talking to you!' " The study was published online in Psychological Science. Read the whole story: NPR
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Losing Is Good for You
The New York Times: As children return to school this fall and sign up for a new year’s worth of extracurricular activities, parents should keep one question in mind. Whether your kid loves Little League or gymnastics, ask the program organizers this: “Which kids get awards?” If the answer is, “Everybody gets a trophy,” find another program. ... Carol Dweck, a psychology professor at Stanford University, found that kids respond positively to praise; they enjoy hearing that they’re talented, smart and so on. But after such praise of their innate abilities, they collapse at the first experience of difficulty. Demoralized by their failure, they say they’d rather cheat than risk failing again.
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Identifying People by Their Bodies When Faces Are No Help
Every day we recognize friends, family, and co-workers from afar -- even before we can distinctly see a face. New research reveals that when facial features are difficult to make out, we readily use information about someone’s body to identify them -- even when we don’t know we’re doing so. “Psychologists and computer scientists have concentrated almost exclusively on the role of the face in person recognition,” explains lead researcher, Allyson Rice of the University of Texas at Dallas.
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Facebook and Narcissism
The New York Times: A Times article recently debated whether young people are more narcissistic than previous generations, mentioning Facebook as a possible factor. And a University of Michigan study, published in June, seems to support this theory. Are social media like Facebook turning us into narcissists? Read the discussion: The New York Times
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Psst. I Hear That Gossip Is Not All Bad.
The Huffington Post: When I was growing up, there was a woman in the neighborhood known as The Mayor. She was not a mayor in any official sense, and in fact held no political office. She was a busybody and a gossip, and she made it her mission to spread the word on other neighbors' lives -- who got a DUI last night, whose teenage daughter was pregnant, who got fired at the factory and whose car dealership was struggling. Her specialty was scandal-mongering, but truth be told, she usually had her facts right. Gossips have a reputation for being trivial and petty and often meanspirited. But is it possible that such babbling serves some valuable social purpose?
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Do You Really Have Free Will?
Slate: It has become fashionable to say that people have no free will. Many scientists cannot imagine how the idea of free will could be reconciled with the laws of physics and chemistry. Brain researchers say that the brain is just a bunch of nerve cells that fire as a direct result of chemical and electrical events, with no room for free will. Others note that people are unaware of some causes of their behavior, such as unconscious cues or genetic predispositions, and extrapolate to suggest that all behavior may be caused that way, so that conscious choosing is an illusion.
