How To Quickly And Easily Make Any Task Seem Easier
an back instead of leaning forward. Via Harvard Business Review: People who leaned back so that their eyes were an average of 38.8 inches from a computer screen found the task of pronouncing meaningless strings of letters easier than people who leaned forward to 12.5 inches, say Manoj Thomas of Cornell and Claire I. Tsai of the University of Toronto. That's because increasing the physical distance from a complex task also increases the psychological distance, which mitigates the sense of…
1 min read
Is envy our default setting?
s. It requires mental effort to not be envious. Via Peer Reviewed By My Neurons: Envy is a shitty thing. In addition to feeling bad that there’s something you don’t have, you often feel bad about how stupid it is that you’re envious. The good news is that a new study by Jan Crusius and Thomas Mussweiler should alleviate the negative feelings that stem from the latter situation. Through a series of experiments they found that envy appears to be our…
2 minutes
Can skipping breakfast lead to murder?
e book Willpower: Resdiscovering the Greatest Human Strength points out some fascinating connections between eating, self-control and violent behavior. Kids who skip breakfast misbehave more than kids who eat their Wheaties. After given a snack, all the children are little angels again: All the children in a class were told to skip breakfast one morning, and then, by random assignment, half of the children were given a good breakfast at school. The others got nothing. During the first part of…
3 minutes
How important is it to feel like you belong?
t feeling socially connected can make you stupider and lead to an early death: When people’s sense of social connectedness is threatened, their ability to self-regulate suffers; for instance their IQ performance drops (Baumeister, Twenge, & Nuss, 2002). Feeling lonely predicts early death as much as major health risk behaviors like smoking (Cacioppo & Patrick, 2008). Source: " Mere Belonging: The Power of Social Connections" from Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Join over 285,000 readers. Get a free weekly update…
1 min read
Can not talking about our problems cause physical health difficulties?
's very possible. Both childhood and more recent traumas not shared with others were correlated with health issues. Writing about these experiences improved immune system function and overall health: Results from a series of studies are summarized in support of a general theory of inhibition and psychosomatics. According to this view, to inhibit thoughts, feelings, or behaviors is associated with physiological work. In the short term, inhibition results in increased autonomic nervous system activity. Over time, inhibition serves as a…
2 minutes
This Is What Your Relationships Are Worth In Dollars:
ving a better social life can be worth as much as an additional $131,232 a year in terms of life satisfaction: There is substantial evidence in the psychology and sociology literature that social relationships promote happiness for the individual. Yet the size of their impacts remains largely unknown. This paper explores the use of shadow pricing method to estimate the monetary values of the satisfaction with life gained by an increase in the frequency of interaction with friends, relatives, and…
3 minutes
Why do grandmom’s cookies taste better than anyone else’s?
tentions change how we experience things. Kindness does soothe pain and increase pleasure. Via Eurekalert: A nurse's tender loving care really does ease the pain of a medical procedure, and grandma's cookies really do taste better, if we perceive them to be made with love - suggests newly published research by a University of Maryland psychologist. The findings have many real-world applications, including in medicine, relationships, parenting and business. "The way we read another persons intentions changes our physical experience…
1 min read
Which people are happiest?
ppiness doesn't change much with age: ...interviews with representative samples of people of all ages reveal that no time of life is notably happier or unhappier than others.... Source: "Who is happy?" from Psychological Science Men and women are about equal overall. Women show more highs and lows but the average comes out nearly the same: In the 1980's collaborative survey of 16 nations, 80% of men and 80% of women said that they were at least "fairly satisfied" with…
2 minutes
