Optimism and positive thinking are generally seen as good while pessimism is considered bad. However, psychologist Gabriele Oettingen studied obese women who were starting a new diet and found the ones who spent more time daydreaming about being thinner actually lost 24 pounds less during the following year. In her book Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science […]
It is not only natural to get stressed in high-stakes situations, it can actually be good. Yesterday we looked at how stress can decrease mortality risk; today we will see that it can increase performance under pressure as well. Studies have found that students who are more stressed during exams and while studying for exams tend […]
We tend to think of stress as bad. However, recent research suggests this is an extreme oversimplification. One study followed 30,000 adults for 8 years and found high levels of stress increased the risk of death by 48% but only among people who believed stress is bad for your health. Those who had high levels […]
You don’t really KNOW anybody. You know how they act around you, but studies show how we act is strongly influenced by how others expect us to act. Kurt Mortensen gives some interesting examples in his book Maximum Influence: The 12 Universal Laws of Power Persuasion. In one study, assembly-line workers who were told their job was […]
How to completely change a marriage in just 7 minutes.
When Sir Alexander Fleming noticed mold destroying his bacteria cultures in 1928 he remarked “that’s funny.” He didn’t get it. By staying embracing this uncertainty he discovered the world’s first antibiotic, Penicillin. Maintaining an open attitude to uncertainty is not just helpful for Nobel Prize-winning scientists; it benefits the rest of us too. In one study, participants were […]
Other people literally become part of you. In a study by James Coan, people in a brain scanner were threatened with shocks. The same brain regions were activated when participants learned a close friend was under threat as when they themselves were threatened. This did not occur for acquaintances. As Mark Leary writes in The Curse […]
In a study by Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer, participants had to give a speech in front of a room full of other students and were judged on how well they did. The results were strongly influenced by what people were told to focus on. The first group was told that mistakes were not allowed and they were […]
In one study, six-month-old babies watched a researcher choose between coffee mugs many times, repeatedly selecting the blue one. When the researchers finally chose a non-blue mug the babies were visibly surprised. However, in a different condition the researcher did the reverse: choosing non-blue mugs every time. In this case the babies were not surprised at all to see him finally select the blue mug on the last round. […]
Do you understand bicycles? During one study participants were asked to draw a diagram of a bike. The results were disastrous. Many drawings were physically impossible. After struggling with the drawings participants realized they did not understand bikes as well as they thought. Yale psychologist Frank Keil has nicknamed this phenomenon the illusion of explanatory depth. It refers to […]
Andy's Quote of the Day 