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22 Oct 09

Bright-Sided: The Negative Consequences Of Positive Thinking - Bright-sided - Jezebel

I love Barbara Ehrenreich, and this is a great review of her most recent book. I'd like to do a post on this myself.

jezebel.com/...sequences-of-positive-thinking - Preview

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  • Ehrenreich also writes persuasively that the popularity of positive thinking in corporate America — she cites the rise of "self-described management gurus" like Tony Robbins and the book Who Moved My Cheese? as examples — has served to blind workers to their ever-decreasing job security.
  • By and large, America's white-collar corporate workforce drank the Kool-Aid, as the expression goes, and accepted positive thinking as a substitute for their former affluence and security. They did not take to the streets, shift their political allegiance in large numbers, or show up at work with automatic weapons in hand. As one laid-off executive told me with quiet pride, "I've gotten over my negative feelings, which were so dysfunctional." Positive thinking promised them a sense of control in a world where the "cheese" was always moving. They may have had less and less power to chart their own futures, but they had been given a worldview — a belief system, almost a religion — that claimed they were in fact infinitely powerful, if they could only master their own minds.
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21 Oct 09

Deborah Kotz, "Why Do Women Have Sex?," Yahoo! News (Oct. 8, 2009, orig. from US News and World Report)

  • The No. 1 reason is because they're attracted to their partner, followed by their seeking of physical gratification. Lower down on the list, the reasons were connected to love or emotional bonding. This sort of knocks down the stereotype that men have sex for pleasure while women have sex for love. Personally, for me--in my 17 years treating women who have sexual problems--it's reassuring to see that most of the women who participated in our survey are having sex for the pure physical pleasure of it.
19 Oct 09

Sharon Begley, "Ignoring the Evidence: Why Do Psychologists Reject Science?," Newsweek.com (Oct. 2, 2009)

Begley doesn't exactly answer the question, but I have some theories, and I suspect it has to do with people's convictions about why human experience is meaningful. I think the disconnect here comes from neglecting what many people, for lack of a better term, might think of as the "spiritual" dimension of their lives. Cognitive-behavioral therapy, as powerful as it has been proven to be, does not satisfy people's desire (both client and therapist) to find narrative resolution, emotional depth, and a sense of meaningful purpose in their suffering. Of course, the same could be said about drugs, and they're obviously very popular, so my gut may be totally wrong on this.

www.newsweek.com/216506 - Preview

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01 Oct 09

Sam Harris et al., "The Neural Correlates of Religious and Nonreligious Belief," PLoS ONE 4 (October 2009): e7272+

From the abstract: "While religious faith remains one of the most significant features of human life, little is known about its relationship to ordinary belief at the level of the brain. Nor is it known whether religious believers and nonbelievers differ in how they evaluate statements of fact. Our lab previously has used functional neuroimaging to study belief as a general mode of cognition [1], and others have looked specifically at religious belief [2]. However, no research has compared these two states of mind directly."

www.plosone.org/...10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0007272 - Preview

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20 Sep 09

Marcus Buckingham: What's Happening To Women's Happiness?

"Over the last 40 years or so, life is not trending toward more fulfillment for women. Life is, in most ways we can measure, becoming more draining instead."

www.huffingtonpost.com/...pening-to-womens_b_289511.html - Preview

psychology happiness poll gender women america !toread

11 Sep 09

Is This Your Brain On God? : NPR

I'm not actually sure what this is -- links to a bunch of related NPR stories, I guess. But it looks interesting.

www.npr.org/...story.php - Preview

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Study Demonstrates How We Support Our False Beliefs - UB NewsCenter

From the article: "Our data shows substantial support for a cognitive theory known as 'motivated reasoning,' which suggests that rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief, people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe. In fact, for the most part people completely ignore contrary information... The study demonstrates voters' ability to develop elaborate rationalizations based on faulty information." Seen on @wildcat2030 's Twitter stream

www.buffalo.edu/10364 - Preview

cognitive_science psychology politics belief via:twitter post:facebook(source)

17 Aug 09

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Facial expressions 'not global'

I think the title is a little misleading. Apparently, while basic facial expressions ARE global, there are culturally specific ways of interpreting them. (This is a subtle, but real distinction.) In Asia, people tend to concentrate primarily on the eyes when interpreting facial expressions, while in the west, people scan the entire face.

news.bbc.co.uk/...8199951.stm - Preview

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