Can anything in life ever surpass winning 14 gold medals?
ybe not. Research shows that extremely positive events can skew perspective so much that everything that follows pales in comparison. Maybe this is why many athletes have trouble staying retired. Via Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of The How of Happiness: As I was watching Michael Phelps receive his 14th gold medal – what a week! – this is what I was thinking: “How could anything in this 23-year old swimmer’s life ever top this?” And: “After he comes down from the…
1 min read
How To Be A Better Person: 7 Steps Backed By Research
all want to know how to be a better person. The science can be surprising. First, remember context, context, context. Your context dramatically affects your behavior, so manipulating it is the easiest, most painless way to change yourself. This is why the religious are nicer on Sundays and mentioning God makes people clean up their act. Thinking about your childhood (seriously, get a teddy bear) and seeing others do nice things can make you act more ethically. Our circumstances…
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Can being bad be very very good?
ung women and women who enjoy sex more prefer bad boys over nice guys. The best leaders have a significant number of negative personality traits. Criminals who kill more people get shorter prison sentences. Jerks and sexist men make more money. Being ethical can hurt your income. Narcissists actually are more attractive. They aren't more creative but you'll think they are. It's actually their worst characteristics that you're most attracted to. And they'll do better in job interviews than you…
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10 ways talking like you’re insane can improve your life:
a general rule I don't recommend it but there are a lot of things we can learn from how crazy people communicate. Talking to yourself out loud can make you smarter, improve your memory, help you focus and even increase athletic performance. (Here's what to say and when to say it.) Fast talkers are more persuasive. Repeating yourself makes you more influential. Swearing does too. (All of these together, well, that may be overdoing it.) Babytalk can improve your…
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The Most Effective Way To Change Your Behavior And Improve Your Life
anging your environment is the easiest and most powerful way to change your behavior. Altering the things in your home and your office and carefully picking the people you spend time with will bring you greater and more effortless results than anything else. But you're an objective, self-determined, independent, unique snowflake, you say? No, you're not. Those around you affect more of your behavior than you think. Poor fitness, car purchases, lateness, having children, charitable contributions, divorce and stupidity are…
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Is the smell of pizza the key to creativity?
eep has been shown to facilitate creativity. Researchers wanted to see if they could coax the brain into continuing work on a problem while people were unconscious. Scientists put an odor in the air while subjects were working on a challenging task. While the subjects slept that night, the odor was again diffused into the room. This stimulated their brains to keep working on the problem while they slept. When they awoke they were more creative: Both scientists and artists…
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Do pregnant women who drink alcohol have smarter and healthier kids?
rst off, nobody disputes that moderate, heavy and binge drinking during pregnancy can have serious negative consequences on a fetus. That said... Via Do Chocolate Lovers Have Sweeter Babies?: The Surprising Science of Pregnancy: Some studies, usually European in origin, lift the spirits. There's no apparent reason to avoid light drinking, according to one at the University of London of nearly 12,500 mothers and their three-year-old children. Reading the results, I contemplate swapping my wheatgrass for a tequila shot. It…
1 min read
Does facing off against rivals increase your performance?
vals do increase performance -- but they also make us more likely to cheat. Via The Boston Globe: Then, analyzing three years of race data, he objectively identified rivals, by finding which runners frequently competed, finished close together, and shared certain basic demographic similarities. Then he analyzed an additional three years of data — including 1,263 road races for 82 runners. When runners raced against one or more rivals, he found, they sped up — increasing their average speed by five seconds per kilometer.…
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