It’s Friday the 13th for the second time in 2012. With one more Friday the 13th coming in July, for some superstitious people this is a scary time—but stay positive. Check out this TED talk from APS Fellow and Charter Member Martin Seligman, a leader in the field of Positive More
Have you watched the movie Friday the 13th? Scary, isn’t it? Well, perhaps not quite as scary as the infamous Rebecca Black song, “Friday” – but close enough. If you are one of those who carries around a rabbit’s foot and strokes it all day long for good luck or More
The Atlantic: Brain-imaging studies have been painting an overly-simplistic picture of the how the brain works. It has even filtered into TV programming. In one episode of a popular legal drama, a character claimed to have figured out that a policeman was racist because his amygdala activated whenever he was More
LiveScience: Fear can distort our perceptions, psychological research indicates, and creepy-crawly spiders are no different. People who are afraid of spiders see the arachnids as bigger than they actually are, recent experiments have shown. Researchers asked people who had undergone therapy to address their fear of spiders to draw a More
The New York Times: Even today, when media warnings about the latest health or safety risk are commonplace, the incessant drumbeat of reported environmental hazards can be truly alarming, leaving us worried, like the followers of Chicken Little, that the sky really is falling. But while plenty of these threats More
In a 2007 episode of the television show Boston Legal, a character claimed to have figured out that a cop was racist because his amygdala activated – displaying fear, when they showed him pictures of black people. This link between the amygdala and fear – especially a fear of others More
