Brain Training: Practice Keeps You Fit
keywords:
brian training / cognition / neuroscience / practice / sudoku
Brain Training: Practice Keeps You Fit
Commercials on the importance of training your brain are nearly a daily occurrence nowadays. A world without Sudoku has almost become unthinkable. Not only puzzles like these, but also numerous specific internet exercise-sites and try-at-home packages are devoted to this phenomenon. This merchandise is usually accompanied by slogans saying something like: "improve cognitive ability and prevent the negative outcome of the aging brain". Just as physical exercise improves the shape of your body muscles, cognitive exercise should keep your brain... / more
Positive Illusions: Brad Pitt or Danny DeVito?
keywords:
body / brad pitt / love / positive illusions
Positive Illusions: Brad Pitt or Danny DeVito?
Imagine a colleague of yours, Mary, comes to the office one day and starts talking about this guy John whom she met in a bar. Supposedly, this guy is not only handsome, but also super smart, extremely witty, and God knows what else. So, obviously, you cannot wait to see this stud. When you – finally - meet this Brad Pitt look-alike, Brad Pitt seems to have been turned into Danny DeVito: all you get to see is this balding... / more
Does Exercise Truly Make You Happy?
Does Exercise Truly Make You Happy?
A healthy mind in a healthy body or mens sane in corpore sano, as Decimus Junius Juvenalis put it in his time, is a phrase that seems to imply some causal relationship between exercise and a sound mind. However, when Juvenalis (one of the great Roman satirists of his time) made himself immortal with these words, he at least seemed to care to make a causal statement. / more
Job insecurity climate: On shared perceptions of job insecurity
keywords:
insecurity / working
Job insecurity climate: On shared perceptions of job insecurity
Imagine that there is a general feeling of anticipating job loss at your work place or in your work group. Maybe something dramatic happened, for instance that the company you work for lost their biggest customer or client account. Or maybe there is just a sneaking suspicion in the work group that the company is not doing too well and that people might be let go. How would this affect you as a person, and how would it affect your work group? / more
Pause Button Therapy
Pause Button Therapy
In these uncertain and confusing times where ambiguity is considered as clarity, marketing is masquerading as science, and problems of living are labeled as disorders, psychotherapy has become a prevalent fad that replaced the support that was once provided by the extended family and the clergy. / more
Confessions of a sociopath: A life spent hiding in plain sight
Confessions of a sociopath: A life spent hiding in plain sight
Have you ever wondered what it feels like to be a sociopath? Or maybe you would rather not even think about it? M. E. Thomas (a pseudonym), the author of “Confessions of a sociopath: A life spent hiding in plain sight” doesn’t need to imagine it, she experiences it every day. / more
That human touch that means so much: Exploring the tactile dimension of social life
keywords:
emotion regulation / interpersonal touch / mediated touch / social bonding
That human touch that means so much: Exploring the tactile dimension of social life
Interpersonal touch is a fundamental but undervalued aspect of human nature. In the present article, the authors review psychological research showing that even fleeting forms of touch may have a powerful impact on our emotional and social functioning. Given its significant beneficial effects, touch may be valuable as a therapeutic or health-promoting tool. / more
Intergroup Contact Theory: Past, Present, and Future
keywords:
discrimination / intergroup contact hypothesis / prejudice
Intergroup Contact Theory: Past, Present, and Future
In the midst of racial segregation in the U.S.A and the ‘Jim Crow Laws’, Gordon Allport (1954) proposed one of the most important social psychological events of the 20th century, suggesting that contact between members of different groups (under certain conditions) can work to reduce prejudice and intergroup conflict. Indeed, the idea that contact between members of different groups can help to reduce prejudice... / more
Are we all jerks? Why nobody helps when surrounded by others
keywords:
bystander effect / diffusion of responsibility / interventions
Are we all jerks? Why nobody helps when surrounded by others
People are not likely to help when faced with an emergency. Are they all heartless or is something else going on? Science reveals that we can explain this lack of helping behavior by the Bystander effect and that there are ways to decrease this effect. It was a busy Monday night in Café Moto in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Cars were passing by and more guests entered the restaurant. The restaurant seats 35... / more
House, M.D. and the science of psychogenic illness
keywords:
psychogenic illness / science
House, M.D. and the science of psychogenic illness
In an episode of House, M.D. (“Airborne”) an illness spreads among passengers on a commercial airplane via ostensibly non-biological means, creating a mini-epidemic with purely psychological origins. Could something like this happen in real life? Does the mere conviction that one is becoming physically sick increase one’s chances of contracting genuine symptoms of illness? This article explores this issue and in the process evaluates the realism of the plot from “Airborne.” / more