José Cavalcante's List: Psicologia

ScienceDaily (Nov. 29, 2009) — Researchers using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study brain activation have found that men and women respond differently to positive and negative stimuli, according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

ScienceDaily (Nov. 28, 2009) — From simple decisions like "Should I eat this brownie?" to bigger questions such as "Should my next car be a hybrid?" consumers are involved in an inner dialogue that reflects thoughts and perspectives of their different selves, according to the authors of a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

“There’s a misperception that care is always expensive, but that’s not the rule,” said John Draper, a psychologist and the project director of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (800 273-TALK), a free 24-hour service supported by the federal government. “There are plenty of ways to get help,” he said. “Some of them are very affordable.”

Scientists have discovered a gene which may help explain the causes of mental illness.

Like eminent social psychologist Professor Philip Zimbardo, I'm also obsessed with why we do dumb or irrational things. The answer quite often is because of other people - something social psychologists have comprehensively shown.

Over the past few months I've been describing 10 of the most influential social psychology studies. Each one tells a unique, insightful story relevant to all our lives, every day.

There's an old joke that the members of Procrastinators Anonymous keep meaning to meet ... but keep putting it off.

A new study that provides a snapshot of a typical American workplace observed that chronic job stress and lack of physical activity are strongly associated with being overweight or obese.

"Cerca de metade das pessoas que hoje atuam nas empresas - de pequeno, médio e grande portes - age de forma totalmente descomprometida em relação aos objetivos da organização em que atuam. O dado faz parte de um estudo global realizado pela consultoria em gestão Right Management, que consultou aproximadamente 30 mil profissionais, dos mais diversos níveis hierárquicos, em 15 países diferentes, incluindo o Brasil."

"But it is a thoughtful piece that just doesn't review two recent books - Gary Greenberg's Manufacturing Depression and Irving Kirsch's The Emperor's New Drugs - but provides a fairly balanced set of observations and valuable historical insights about these never-ending arguments that seem to pervade psychiatry (and psychology and mental disorders in general)"

In recent years, the motivations of business leaders such as financier Bernard Madoff and former Enron CEO Ken Lay have come under increased scrutiny as a result of behavior that caused both their employees and the public considerable distress. Can many of the documented lapses in judgment be traced to selfishness and a failure to check one's ego? Researchers think so.

If idle people remain idle, they are miserable. If idle people become busy, they will be happier, but the outcome may or may not be desirable, depending on the value of the chosen activity. Busyness can be either constructive or destructive. Ideally, idle people should devote their energy to constructive courses, but it is often difficult to predict which actions are constructive (e.g., are business investments or scientific discoveries always constructive?), and not every idle individual is capable of constructive contributions. [...]\n We advocate a third kind of busyness: futile busyness, namely, busyness serving no purpose other than to prevent idleness. Such activity is more realistic than constructive busyness and less evil than destructive busyness.

"Mick Pearce is an African architect who has tried to change that model, demonstrating his ideas in two signature buildings, the Eastgate Building in Harare, Zimbabwe, and the Council House 2 Building in Melbourne, Australia. Both buildings employ common-sense passive systems for climate control based on gradients, and both were inspired by the work of a tiny insect, the termite".

Behavioral and anthropological evidence show that humans dislike social inequality and unfair distribution of outcomes. But this evidence is not purely social, anymore, since researchers at the California Institute of Technology and Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, have identified reward centers in the brain that are sensitive to inequality.

What is the effect of such disidentification? The researchers speculate (and find some basis for it in already existing research) that such perceptions detract from the therapist-patient relationship; could dissuade people in need of psychological services from seeking help; make it difficult for the therapist to feel and express empathy and genuine concern; could decrease the therapist’s belief in their clients’ recovery; and may model inappropriate behaviour.

Perfectionists, by definition, strive for the best, trying to ace exams, be meticulous at their jobs, and raise perfect children. So one might assume this drive for the ideal translates over to their health as well, with perfectionist being models for physical and mental well-being.

For all of its wild popularity, caffeine is one seriously misunderstood substance. It's not a simple upper, and it works differently on different people with different tolerances—even in different menstrual cycles. But you can make it work better for you.

Brainstorming in a group became popular in 1953 with the publication of a business book, Applied Imagination. But it’s been proven not to work since 1958, when Yale researchers found that the technique actually reduced a team’s creative output

Ron Ritchhart, in his book Intellectual Character, as well as his work with Visible Thinking through Harvard’s Project Zero, describes the forces that comprise a ‘culture of thinking‘ in the classroom. Here’s my take…