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Following Your Bliss, Right Off the Cliff
The New York Times: So you want to be a writer. Or an artist. Or to open a cupcake shop. What you’ll hear, often, is that you should pursue your dream. Follow your passion. Quit your job and live the life you want. That advice should come with a bright yellow warning sticker: your dream may end in disaster. ... “There’s a whole host of what my colleague Shelley Taylor” — a psychology professor at U.C.L.A. —“calls positive illusions,” said Professor Fox. “We overestimate our ability to control outcomes that have some element of chance” and we “tend to overestimate the extent to which good things are going to happen, especially to us.” Read the whole story: The New York Times
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Does studying science make you a better person?
Pacific Standard: That’s the implication of newly published research, which finds people who study science — or who are even momentarily exposed to the idea of scientific research — are more likely to condemn unethical behavior and more inclined to help others. “Thinking about science leads individuals to endorse more stringent moral norms,” report psychologists Christine Ma-Kellams of Harvard University and Jim Blascovich of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Their research is published in the online journal PLOS One. The researchers describe four experiments, all conducted at UCSB, that back up their surprising conclusion.
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Body Representation Differs in Children and Adults
Children’s sense of having and owning a body differs from that of adults, indicating that our sense of physical self develops over time, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Many of our senses -- vision, touch, and body orientation -- come together to inform our perception of having and owning a body. Psychological scientist Dorothy Cowie of Goldsmiths, University of London and colleagues hypothesized that there might be age differences in how these processes come together.
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Is the Music of the ’60s Really the Best Ever?
I had the good fortune to come of age during the richest musical epoch—well, ever. The Grateful Dead, the Beatles, Dylan, Janis Joplin, Zappa. I could go on and on. The ‘60s witnessed an unparalleled burst of musical creativity, ranging from the Cream to CCR to Hendrix and to Neil Young and Paul Simon and Joni Mitchell. There is simply no match—not before nor since—for this outpouring of enduring song. And what’s more, nobody really disputes this. Okay, okay. I wrote all those superlatives in part to provoke a reaction. There are people who dispute this claim, and indeed some are among my own friends and family.
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Sounds of Arguing Affect Sleeping Babies’ Brains
LiveScience: Hearing the sounds of arguments affects how a baby's brain processes emotional tones of a voice, a new study finds. The little ones' brains lit up in response to angry tones, even while they were asleep. Babies' minds are extremely malleable. The environments and events they experience shape their brains for good or for ill. Stress due to maltreatment or being raised in an institution can take a toll on a baby's development. But this study, to be published in a forthcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science, shows that even moderate stresses can affect brain function.
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You Can Smell Other People’s Emotions, and They’re Contagious
Forbes: Emotions are the primary driver of our behavior. Everything we experience in the world around us—no matter how small—generates an emotional response that motivates action. Sometimes emotions move us to act before we even have a chance to think rationally about them. Emotions are also contagious. The brain has a host of complex methods for detecting emotions in other people, and it uses this information to mirror their emotional state. Some of these social survival mechanisms operate beneath our conscious awareness. A new study published in the journal Psychological Science provides fascinating insight into one such mechanism. Read the whole story: Forbes
