Umi Devi

Showing posts with label psychology. Show all posts

Aug 12, 2011

Bored? Good.

"Boredom acts as an early warning that certain situations may be dangerous to human well-being. It’s not unlike disgust, another emotion that helps humans prosper. Just as disgust stops you from eating what is noxious, so boredom, in social settings, alerts you to situations that can do no psychological good. Boredom, interpreted properly, might act as an alarm. It urges you to step back.

"So

Jul 29, 2011

Give a little, get a lot

Will get a promotion.
The support we get from friends and families has a direct bearing on our well-being, Shawn Achor writes.
Studies even show that high levels of social support is as predictive of longevity as regular exercise, while low social support is as damaging as high blood pressure. That's amazing.This also applies at work. In his research at Harvard, he learned:
The greatest metric

Jul 27, 2011

Time flies when you're having fun

Having fun yet?
Not so fast, Sparky.

Scientists with time on their hands suggest we pause for a moment.
We've all experienced the fact that time seems to fly when we're having fun. Or does it? What about when you're listening to a fantastic uplifting piece of music? Does time seem to fly by, or conversely, does it seem to slow down? When this was tested by Kellaris (1992), they found that when

Jul 9, 2011

The mind/body connection: pick up a book

Very important.
People who were told that a book was important perceived it to weigh 944 grams, on average, compared with 591 grams for those who received no such information, according to a study led by Iris K. Schneider of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
The researchers say the study shows that the concept of importance is closely associated with bodily sensations of weight.

Jul 3, 2011

Why we laugh

Heuristics gone bad.
We laugh because we read this blog, of course. Here's another explanation, from a review of new book on humor.
To aid survival, our brains constantly and covertly use heuristics to generate expectations about what we will experience next, but we would be too inventive for our own good if we did not regularly search for and remove discrepancies between our expectations and

Jun 26, 2011

Be your own therapist

Positive psychology involves more than just thinking happy thoughts. Positive psychology focuses on the strengths and virtues that help people thrive, such as courage, gratitude, compassion, resilience and creativity. While most therapists attempt to "fix what's wrong," positive psychologists also want to "build what's strong."

Therapists who practice positive psychology help individuals see

Jun 24, 2011

Get out! Get out!

Gumbo reader: What, me stressed?
Scientists have confirmed what every urbanite has long suspected – life in the city is more stressful.
Researchers have shown that the parts of the brain dealing with stress and emotion are affected by living among the crowds. The findings help shed light on why those who are born and raised in urban areas are more likely to suffer from anxiety, depression and

Jun 21, 2011

How to make better decisions

We've actually got two people living inside us -- the Want Guy and the Should Guy. Jeremy Dean, a researcher in psychology at University College London, working towards a PhD, uses research to help us keep the two straight when making decisions.

1. Make the choice in advance. One of the best ways to fox the Want guy is to make the decision in advance. When we make decisions in advance it's

Jun 20, 2011

How to detect a liar

When evaluating a potential liar, consider these three behavioral signals — that is, both what they say and how they say it:

Discomfort
Does the person seem uncomfortable about what she is saying? The visible anxiety may be caused by guilt or fear of getting caught, which leads liars to hurry to end the discussion and even look relieved when it's over. Their feet might be pointing in the

Jun 17, 2011

Are women born to be moody?

Get her some serotonin.
If you'll put down that rolling pin, I'll let you read this.

Science now seems to back the idea that women’s brains may be wired for increased anxiety, depression and mood swings. And the problem could be exacerbated by those high-protein, low-calorie weight-loss programs.
A recent study from Sweden has discovered two key differences in the way men and women’s brains

Jun 9, 2011

The care and feeding of your mind

We know, if we don't follow, the rules for health eating. But what about rules for maintaining a healthy mind?

Dr. David Rock, executive director of the NeuroLeadership Institute, and Dr. Daniel Siegel, executive director of the Mindsight Institute and clinical professor at the UCLA School of Medicine, have come up with "the health mind platter."
"These seven daily activities make up the full

May 30, 2011

Why that clever come-back never comes

You have one of these.
Here's how your brain works, boys and girls.
The default brain network includes one of the busiest and most important structures in the entire brain, the hippocampus, which is responsible for processing memories. "Whenever you have to look something up or file something away, you ask your hippocampus to do it," says Jens Pruessner, an associate professor in the

May 18, 2011

Keep on believing and you'll keep on longer

We now know that underestimating the obstacles life has in store lowers stress and anxiety, leading to better health and well-being, Tali Sharot reports in The New York Times.
This is one reason optimists recover faster from illnesses and live longer. Believing a goal is attainable motivates us to get closer to our dreams. Because of the power of optimism, commencement speakers who enhance

May 14, 2011

Worry about this

We live and work in an age when there is plenty to fret about, Thomas J. DeLong, professor of management at Harvard, writes. This worrying becomes a trap, however, when we start seeing doom and gloom everywhere, when it colors our decision-making and behaviors, when it causes us to go into a shell or always respond in the same tried-and-true ways to avoid catalyzing our worst fears.

Think about

May 4, 2011

Reach out and touch someone

Touching someone ever so slightly can have tremendous power. Some research at Psyblog:

1. A well-timed touch can encourage other people to return a lost item. In one experiment, users of a phone booth who were touched were more likely to return a lost dime to an experimenter (Kleinke, 1977). The action was no more than a light touch on the arm. People will do more than that though; people will