Chilean officials dropping wait-time news gently to 33 trapped miners - CNN.com
As Chile labors carefully to rescue 33 trapped miners, the nation is subtly working to buoy their hopes and psychological equilibrium by not telling them straight out just how long it could take to free them from the bottom of a dark and craggy shaft...
Authorities believe it would be too much of a psychological blow to tell the miners that experts estimate it could take three to four months to drill the men out.
As Chile labors carefully to rescue 33 trapped miners, the nation is subtly working to buoy their hopes and psychological equilibrium by not telling them straight out just how long it could take to free them from the bottom of a dark and craggy shaft...
Authorities believe it would be too much of a psychological blow to tell the miners that experts estimate it could take three to four months to drill the men out.
Capitalism has made society 'kinder'~ National Post
Social scientists -- and economists in particular -- have long been baffled with the way people in large societies are so trusting and fair in dealings with strangers. Many academics have argued it is a throwback to a time when humans were hunter-gatherers.
Mr. Henrich and his colleagues say their findings indicate playing fair with strangers is a behaviour that was favoured as the size of societies and populations grew.
The emergence and growth of markets allowed for the exchange of goods, skills and knowledge and enabled large complex societies to emerge and function, Mr. Henrich says, noting that humans in large societies are not nearly as selfish as some would suggest.
Social scientists -- and economists in particular -- have long been baffled with the way people in large societies are so trusting and fair in dealings with strangers. Many academics have argued it is a throwback to a time when humans were hunter-gatherers.
Mr. Henrich and his colleagues say their findings indicate playing fair with strangers is a behaviour that was favoured as the size of societies and populations grew.
The emergence and growth of markets allowed for the exchange of goods, skills and knowledge and enabled large complex societies to emerge and function, Mr. Henrich says, noting that humans in large societies are not nearly as selfish as some would suggest.
Ewwwwwwwww! - The Boston Globe
Research has shown that people who are more easily disgusted by bugs are more likely to see gay marriage and abortion as wrong. Putting people in a foul-smelling room makes them stricter judges of a controversial film or of a person who doesn't return a lost wallet. Washing their hands makes people feel less guilty about their own moral transgressions, and hypnotically priming them to feel disgust reliably induces them to see wrongdoing in utterly innocuous stories.
Research has shown that people who are more easily disgusted by bugs are more likely to see gay marriage and abortion as wrong. Putting people in a foul-smelling room makes them stricter judges of a controversial film or of a person who doesn't return a lost wallet. Washing their hands makes people feel less guilty about their own moral transgressions, and hypnotically priming them to feel disgust reliably induces them to see wrongdoing in utterly innocuous stories.
Today, psychologists and philosophers are piecing these findings together into a theory of disgust's moral role and the evolutionary forces that determined it: Just as our teeth and tongue first evolved to process food, then were enlisted for complex communication, disgust first arose as an emotional response to ensure that our ancestors steered clear of rancid meat and contagion. But over time, that response was co-opted by the social brain to help police the boundaries of acceptable behavior. Today, some psychologists argue, we recoil at the wrong just as we do at the rancid, and when someone says that a politician's chronic dishonesty makes her sick, she is feeling the same revulsion she might get from a brimming plate of cockroaches.
Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age ~ Trip Gabriel
The New York Times - Aug. 1st 2010
In this article, Trip Gabriel explores the problem of plagiarism in the digital age. Not only is plagiarism easier for students to commit online, but Gabriel shows that the idea of authorship is becoming more obscure as today's students view text as information for anyone to take. Are students legitimately out of touch with the concept of authorship and intellectual property, or are they just lazy and unprepared for college?
Consumers Find Ways to Spend Less and Find Happiness - NYTimes.com
Inspired by books and blog entries about living simply, Ms. Strobel and her husband, Logan Smith, both 31, began donating some of their belongings to charity. As the months passed, out went stacks of sweaters, shoes, books, pots and pans, even the television after a trial separation during which it was relegated to a closet. Eventually, they got rid of their cars, too. Emboldened by a Web site that challenges consumers to live with just 100 personal items, Ms. Strobel winnowed down her wardrobe and toiletries to precisely that number.
Her mother called her crazy.
Inspired by books and blog entries about living simply, Ms. Strobel and her husband, Logan Smith, both 31, began donating some of their belongings to charity. As the months passed, out went stacks of sweaters, shoes, books, pots and pans, even the television after a trial separation during which it was relegated to a closet. Eventually, they got rid of their cars, too. Emboldened by a Web site that challenges consumers to live with just 100 personal items, Ms. Strobel winnowed down her wardrobe and toiletries to precisely that number.
Her mother called her crazy.
Philosophy and Faith - NYTimes.com
Soon enough, however, things again fall apart, since our best efforts to construct arguments along the traditional lines face successive difficulties. The students realize that I'm not going to be able to give them a convincing proof, and I let them in on the dirty secret: philosophers have never been able to find arguments that settle the question of God's existence or any of the other "big questions" we've been discussing for 2500 years.
Bertrand Russell
Reaching the Last Technology Holdouts at the Front of the Classroom - The Chronicle of Higher Education
hat frustrates Chris Dede, a professor of learning technologies at Harvard University, who argues that clinging to outdated teaching practices amounts to educational malpractice.
If you were going to see a doctor and the doctor said, 'I've been really busy since I got out of medical school, and so I'm going to treat you with the techniques I learned back then,' you'd be rightly incensed," he told me recently. "Yet there are a lot of faculty who say with a straight face, 'I don't need to change my teaching,' as if nothing has been learned about teaching since they had been prepared to do it--if they've ever been prepared to."
How Money Restricts Life's Pleasures -- PsyBlog
It's a mystery why money doesn't make us happy, because it feels like it damn well should. With money we can buy whatever we want, go wherever we want, even be whoever we want. Surely that should make us happy?
And yet study after study shows that in affluent societies money might bring satisfaction, but it doesn't bring much happiness.
Perhaps, as people become really rich, they don't choose more enjoyable activities (i.e. they stay in the office working)? Perhaps material goods just can't make us happy? Or perhaps there is always someone richer, spoiling the party with their more impressive wealth?
THE NEW SCIENCE OF MORALITY ~Edge.org
No where is this more apparent than in the field of moral psychology. Using babies, psychopaths, chimpanzees, fMRI scanners, web surveys, agent-based modeling, and ultimatum games, moral psychology has become a major convergence zone for research in the behavioral sciences.
So what do we have to say? Are we moving toward consensus on some points? What are the most pressing questions for the next five years? And what do we have to offer a world in which so many global and national crises are caused or exacerbated by moral failures and moral conflicts? It seems like everyone is studying morality these days, reaching findings that complement each other more often than they clash.
We're happier when busy but our instinct is for idleness ~ BPS Research Digest
The World's Happiest Countries - Forbes.com
First they asked subjects to reflect on their overall satisfaction with their lives, and ranked their answers using a "life evaluation" score between 1 and 10. Then they asked questions about how each subject had felt the previous day. Those answers allowed researchers to score their "daily experiences"--things like whether they felt well-rested, respected, free of pain and intellectually engaged.
Subjects that reported high scores were considered "thriving." The percentage of thriving individuals in each country determined our rankings
Why Money Makes You Unhappy | Wired Science | Wired.com
Even worse, it appears that the richest nation in history - 21st century America - is slowly getting less pleased with life... Needless to say, this data contradicts one of the central assumptions of modern society, which is that more money equals more pleasure....
But the statistical disconnect between money and happiness raises a fascinating question: Why doesn't money make us happy? One intriguing answer comes from a new study by psychologists at the University of Liege, published in Psychological Science. The scientists explore the "experience-stretching hypothesis," an idea first proposed by Daniel Gilbert.
The Gospel of Mel Gibson - NYTimes.com
His self-love is his most precious possession. It is the holy center of all that is sacred and right. He is hypersensitive about anybody who might splatter or disregard his greatness. If someone treats him slightingly, he perceives that as a deliberate and heinous attack. If someone threatens his reputation, he regards this as an act of blasphemy. He feels justified in punishing the attacker for this moral outrage.
How facts backfire - The Boston Globe
In the end, truth will out. Won't it? Maybe not. Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It's this: Facts don't necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.
The Medium Is the Medium ~ David Brooks - The New York Times - July 2010
In this op-ed article, famous writer and columnist, David Brooks, provides new arguments for why the act of reading books is superior to internet reading. He refers to a philanthropist who puts it like this, '"It's not the physical presence of the books that produces the biggest impact," she suggested. "It's the change in the way the students see themselves as they build a home library. They see themselves as readers, as members of a different group."'
Attention Whole Foods Shoppers ~ Robert Paarlberg - Foreign Policy
In this article, published in June 2010, Robert Paarlberg, Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College, argues against the assumption that organic foods are better for the planet and for the world's population. He writes, "In Europe and the United States, a new line of thinking has emerged in elite circles that opposes bringing improved seeds and fertilizers to traditional farmers and opposes linking those farmers more closely to international markets. Influential food writers, advocates, and celebrity restaurant owners are repeating the mantra that "sustainable food" in the future must be organic, local, and slow. But guess what: Rural Africa already has such a system, and it doesn't work." Does Paalberg raise some good points? How convincing is Paalberg's argument, in your opinion?
This Time Is Different ~ Thomas Friedman - The New York Times
Who is really to blame for the largest oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? Columnist and well known author, Thomas Friedman, turns to his friend, Mark Mykleby, for the answer. Mykleby writes, "This isn't BP's or Transocean's fault. It's not the government's fault. It's my fault. I'm the one to blame and I'm sorry. It's my fault because I haven't digested the world's in-your-face hints that maybe I ought to think about the future and change the unsustainable way I live my life." Does Mykleby make a good point, in your opinion? Read more in Friedman's June 11th, 2010 op- ed piece.
Why Parents Hate Parenting -- New York Magazine
From the perspective of the species, it's perfectly unmysterious why people have children. From the perspective of the individual, however, it's more of a mystery than one might think. Most people assume that having children will make them happier. Yet a wide variety of academic research shows that parents are not happier than their childless peers, and in many cases are less so. This finding is surprisingly consistent, showing up across a range of disciplines
Communication: Its Blocking and Facilitation~ Carl Rogers - 1951
(After clicking on this link, scroll past the newsletter to read Roger's article)
Carol Rogers was a well known psycholgist who greatly influenced modern thinking about effective communication and argumentation. In his 1951 essay titled, "Communication: Its Blocking and Facilitation," he argues that the best approach to problem solving and disagreement is listening empathetically and disabling defensiveness. He writes," Breakdowns in communication, and the evaluative tendency which is the major barrier to communication, can be avoided. The solution is provided by creating a situation in which each of the different parties come to understand the other from the other's point of view."
After reading this essay, ask yourself this: How might you summarize Roger's argument? How might his essay influence the way you think about arguments?
Can We Talk ~ A condensed excerpt from Deborah Tannen's book, You Just Don't Understand - Women and Men in Conversation
In this excerpt, Tannen taps into the source of communication problems between men and women. She writes, "As a specialist in linguistics, I have studied how the conversational styles of men and women differ. We cannot lump all men or all women into fixed categories. But the seemingly senseless misunderstandings that haunt our relationships can in part be explained by the different conversational rules by which men and women play."
Why Our Campuses are NOT safer without Concealed Handguns
According to their website, "Students for Concealed Carry on Campus [SCCC] is a national, non-partisan, grassroots organization composed of more than 43,000 college students, professors, college employees, parents of college students, and concerned citizens who believe that holders of state-issued concealed handgun licenses should be allowed the same measure of personal protection on college campuses that current laws afford them virtually everywhere else." In this article, the SCCC provides a point by point refutation to the arguments put forth by an anti-gun rights student organization called Students for Gun Free Schools (SGFS).
Why We Must Ration Health Care ~ Peter Singer - The New York Times Magazine
Famous ethicist, Peter Singer, begins his argument on rationing health care like this, "You have advanced kidney cancer. It will kill you, probably in the next year or two. A drug called Sutent slows the spread of the cancer and may give you an extra six months, but at a cost of $54,000. Is a few more months worth that much?"
Singer continues, "If you can afford it, you probably would pay that much, or more, to live longer, even if your quality of life wasn't going to be good. But suppose it's not you with the cancer but a stranger covered by your health-insurance fund. If the insurer provides this man -- and everyone else like him -- with Sutent, your premiums will increase. Do you still think the drug is a good value? Suppose the treatment cost a million dollars. Would it be worth it then? Ten million? Is there any limit to how much you would want your insurer to pay for a drug that adds six months to someone's life? If there is any point at which you say, 'No, an extra six months isn't worth that much,' then you think that health care should be rationed."
