When we think about Mozart, Einstein, Michael Jordan, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs (or any other hugely successful person) we usually think about how smart they are, not how hard they worked. This creates the illusion that said individuals got to the top because they had something other people didn’t – some sort of genius. The more accurate picture is that their perseverance, work ethic and pure passion for what they did separated them from the rest of us. Unfortunately, as per Dweck’s study, kids praised for being “smart” don’t push themselves to achieve as much as they could because they believe intelligence alone breeds success. This belief causes them to fear failure, which moreover prohibits them from accomplishing and learning more. (…)

Mistakes are an essential component to learning. Learning about cognitive biases and irrational tendencies is vital, but appreciating failure and having a willingness to be wrong – to be irrational – is also essential.

{ Why We Reason | Continue reading }

How to break free of the wrong career

Ibarra (2002) believes that instead of wasting too much time planning, analysing, and researching career change options, you should take action first and work through the results iteratively afterwards. Through an action-oriented approach you can adapt, regroup your thoughts, and reorient your pathway from real-life experience. This means that your career change is never a pipedream that is too risky to implement because you are actively pursuing change. You have real-life information on which to base a decision.

It’s also a good way of exploring our many different “selves”. Ibarra quotes research from cognitive psychologist Hazel Markus (1986), Possible Selves, which explores the idea of multiple adult identities formed in the present, past and future. (…) Ibarra does not believe that we can find our one “true self” and that too much introspection will amount to nothing more than daydreams. It’s action that counts.

{ ona76 | Continue reading }

Both correlational and experimental evidence suggest that when people are sleep deprived, they feel more irritable, angry and hostile. Sleep loss is also associated with greater depressive mood. In addition, sleep deprivation seems to be associated with greater reactivity in that people who suffer from sleep loss are especially likely to react negatively when something doesn’t go well for them. For those of you interested in the brain – some research suggests that sleep deprivation enhances negative mood due to increased amygdale activity (a brain structure integral to experiences of negative emotions such as anger and rage) and a disconnect between the amygdale and the area of the brain that regulates its functions. In other words: increased negative mood, and decreased ability to regulate that anger.

{ Psych Your Mind | Continue reading }

In 1986, CEO of Perrier North America Bruce Nevins found himself in a difficult spot. On KABC radio in Los Angeles the host challenged him to a blind taste test. The rules were simple: correctly identify a Perrier from seven drinks – six club sodas and one Perrier. Long story short, Nevins failed miserably; it took him not one or two, but five tries before he picked out the Perrier.

I stole this example from Yale psychologist Paul Bloom, author of How Pleasure Works to reinforce a point I made a few posts ago: how you taste something strongly depends on what you believe you are tasting.

{ The Psychology of Pleasure: Interview With Paul Bloom | Continue reading }

painting { Rubens, Cimon and Pero, c.1630 | At first this seems a strange subject for a painting: a young woman giving her breast to an old man tied up in chains in a bare prison cell. In fact it is a story from Roman history: the tale of Cimon and Pero. Cimon is Pero’s father. He is in prison awaiting execution and has been given nothing to eat. Pero has recently had a child and saves her father from starvation by secretly giving him her breast. This relatively large picture was painted by the famous Antwerp artist, Peter Paul Rubens. To enliven the scene, Rubens has added two prying prison guards on the right. }

In December 2010, two independent laboratories have demonstrated that a full genome-wide analysis of the fetus could be performed from a sample of maternal blood, making fetal diagnostic testing possible in the future for any known genetic condition. The convergence of cffDNA (cell-free fetal DNA) testing with low cost genomic sequencing will enable prospective parents to have relatively inexpensive access to a wide range of genetic information about their fetus from as early as seven weeks gestation.

This article examines a range of ethical, legal and social implications associated with introducing NIPD (non-invasive prenatal diagnosis) into prenatal practice.

{ SSRN | Continue reading }

We all have personal stories about who we are and what the world is like. These stories aren’t necessarily conscious, but they are the narratives by which we live our lives. Many of us have healthy, optimistic stories that serve us well. But sometimes, people develop pessimistic stories and get caught in self-defeating thinking cycles, whereby they assume the worst and, as a result, cope poorly. The question then becomes how to help people revise their negative stories.

{ Timothy D. Wilson/Scientific American | Continue reading }

images { 1. Willem de Kooning, Reclining Nude, c. 1938 | 2. Karlina Caune by Andreas Öhlund }

{ Domestic cats have been genetically modified to resist the feline form of AIDS in a new study that could have significant implications for health researchers working to protect humans from the virus. | Cosmos | Smithsonian }

related { Missing Colorado cat found in New York }

Moody. Impulsive. Maddening. Why do teenagers act the way they do? Viewed through the eyes of evolution, their most exasperating traits may be the key to success as adults.

The first full series of scans of the developing adolescent brain showed that our brains undergo a massive reorganization between our 12th and 25th years. The brain doesn’t actually grow very much during this period. It has already reached 90 percent of its full size by the time a person is six, and a thickening skull accounts for most head growth afterward. But as we move through adolescence, the brain undergoes extensive remodeling, resembling a network and wiring upgrade. (…)

This process of maturation, once thought to be largely finished by elementary school, continues throughout adolescence. Imaging work done since the 1990s shows that these physical changes move in a slow wave from the brain’s rear to its front, from areas close to the brain stem that look after older and more behaviorally basic functions, such as vision, movement, and fundamental processing, to the evolutionarily newer and more complicated thinking areas up front. The corpus callosum, which connects the brain’s left and right hemispheres and carries traffic essential to many advanced brain functions, steadily thickens. Stronger links also develop between the hippocampus, a sort of memory directory, and frontal areas that set goals and weigh different agendas; as a result, we get better at integrating memory and experience into our decisions. At the same time, the frontal areas develop greater speed and richer connections, allowing us to generate and weigh far more variables and agendas than before.

When this development proceeds normally, we get better at balancing impulse, desire, goals, self-interest, rules, ethics, and even altruism, generating behavior that is more complex and, sometimes at least, more sensible. But at times, and especially at first, the brain does this work clumsily. It’s hard to get all those new cogs to mesh.

{ National Geographic | Continue reading }

painting { Gustav Klimt, Bildnis Helene Klimt, 1898 }

People directly experience only the here and now. It is impossible to experience the past and the future, other places, other people, and alternatives to reality. And yet, memories, plans, predictions, hopes, and counterfactual alternatives populate our minds, influence our emotions, and guide our choice and action. How do we transcend the here and now to include distal entities? How do we plan for the distant future, understand other people’s point of view, and take into account hypothetical alternatives to reality? Construal level theory (CLT) proposes that we do so by forming abstract mental construals of distal objects.

Thus, although we cannot experience what is not present, we can make predictions about the future, remember the past, imagine other people’s reactions, and speculate about what might have been. Predictions, memories, and speculations are all mental constructions, distinct from direct experience. They serve to transcend the immediate situation and represent psychologically distant objects.

Psychological distance is a subjective experience that something is close or far away from the self, here, and now. Psychological distance is thus egocentric: Its reference point is the self, here and now, and the different ways in which an object might be removed from that point—in time, space, social distance, and hypotheticality—constitute different distance dimensions.

According to CLT, then, people traverse different psychological distances by using similar mental construal processes.

{ Construal-Level Theory of Psychological Distance | PubMed | Continue reading }

artwork { Morten Hemmingsen }

Nick Neave and colleagues at Northumbria University used motion-capture technology to record the movements of 19 men dancing to a basic drum beat. Each dancer was then mapped onto a computer-generated avatar, and 37 heterosexual women were asked to rate the avatars on their dancing prowess.

By correlating the women’s ratings with the avatars’ movements, the scientists were able to come up with a recipe for successful boogieing. The three factors that most contributed to high dance scores were ‘neck internal/external rotation variability’ (head shaking), ‘trunk adduction/abduction variability’ (sideways bending) and ‘right knee internal/external rotation speed’ (twisting speed).

These movements, claims the study, may provide signals of a man’s suitability as a sexual partner by indicating his physical strength, health or genetic quality.

{ the.soft.anonymous | Continue reading }

bonus:

{ A surprising new study suggests that people can track a scent across a grassy field–at least if they’re willing to get down on their hands and knees and put their noses to the ground. | Science | full story | Thanks Tim }

As onions are sliced, cells are broken, allowing enzymes called alliinases to break down amino acid sulphoxides and generate sulphenic acids.

A specific sulfenic acid, 1-propenesulfenic acid, formed when onions are cut, is rapidly rearranged by a second enzyme, called the lachrymatory factor synthase, giving syn-propanethial-S-oxide a volatile gas known as the onion lachrymatory factor (LF).

The LF gas diffuses through the air and eventually reaches the eye, where it activates sensory neurons, creating a stinging sensation. Tear glands produce tears to dilute and flush out the irritant. Chemicals that exhibit such an effect on the eyes are known as lachrymatory agents.

Supplying ample water to the reaction while peeling onions prevents the gas from reaching the eyes. Eye irritation can, therefore, be avoided by cutting onions under running water or submerged in a basin of water.

Another way to reduce irritation is by chilling, or by not cutting off the root of the onion (or by doing it last), as the root of the onion has a higher concentration of enzymes.

{ Wikipedia | Continue reading }

In a series of two experiments, Smith and colleagues show that memory in women is sensitive to male voice pitch, a cue important for mate choice because it can indicate genetic quality as well as signal behavioral traits undesirable in a long-term partner. (…)

The authors found that women had a strong preference for the low pitch male voice and remembered objects more accurately when they have been introduced by the deep male voice.

{ Springer | Continue reading }

Anyone who has ever been out in the rain too long or soaked for hours in a tub knows the prunelike effect it can have on your hands and feet. Conventional wisdom suggests it is nothing more than the skin absorbing water.

But a number of questions have puzzled scientists. Why do “wet wrinkles” appear only on the hands and feet? And why are the most prominent wrinkles at the ends of the digits? Surgeons already know that cutting nerves in a finger prevents the wrinkling, suggesting the process is controlled by the nervous system.

Now a paper in the journal Brain, Behavior and Evolution offers more evidence that wet wrinkles serve a purpose: better grip and traction.

{ NY Times | Continue reading }

gouache and pencil on paper { Dick Blair }

{ SETI@Home is a distributed computing initiative that analyses radio signals for signs of extra terrestrial intelligence. SETI@Home volunteers have identified some 4.2 billion signals. Most, if not all, of them are likely to be the result of noise or interference. | The Physics arXiv Blog }

Most people detect a distinct sulfurous odor in their urine shortly after eating asparagus. However, there are some who seemingly do not notice the unpleasant odor.

Up until now, it has been unclear whether this is because these individuals do not produce the odor or because they cannot smell it.

Addressing this mystery from several angles, scientists from the Monell Center first used sophisticated sensory testing techniques to show that both explanations apply: approximately eight percent of the subjects tested did not produce the odorous substance, while six percent were unable to smell the odor. One person both did not produce the odor and was unable to smell it.

{ EurekAlert | Continue reading }

Hidden inside language are small, stealthy words that can reveal a great deal about your personality, thinking style, emotional state and connections with others. These words account for less than 0.1 per cent of your vocabulary but make up more than half of the words commonly used. Your brain is not wired to notice them but if you pay close attention, you will start to see their subtle power. (…)

We found that the use of pronouns – I, me, we, she, they – mattered enormously. The more people changed from using first-person singular pronouns (I, me, my) to using other pronouns (we, you, she, they) from one piece of writing to the next, the better their health became. Their word use reflected their psychological state.

This was the prelude to a more substantial discovery. (…) I wondered if there were any gender distinctions and found that yes, there were significant differences. (…) Not only was gender a factor, there were large differences in language style as a function of people’s age, social class, emotional state, level of honesty, personality, degree of formality, leadership ability, quality of relationships and so on. (…)

In one experiment, we analysed hundreds of essays written by my students and we identified three very different writing styles: formal, analytic and narrative.
Formal writing often appears stiff, sometimes humourless, with a touch of arrogance. It includes high rates of articles and prepositions but very few I-words, and infrequent discrepancy words, such as “would”, and adverbs. Formality is related to a number of important personality traits. Those who score highest in formal thinking tend to be more concerned with status and power and are less self-reflective. They drink and smoke less and are more mentally healthy, but also tend to be less honest. As people age, their writing styles tend to become more formal.

Analytical writing, meanwhile, is all about making distinctions. These people attain higher grades, tend to be more honest, and are more open to new experiences. They also read more and have more complex views of themselves.

Narrative writers are natural storytellers. The function words that generally reveal storytelling involve people, past-tense verbs and inclusive words such as “with” and “together”. People who score high for narrative writing tend to have better social skills, more friends and rate themselves as more outgoing.

{ NewScientist | Continue reading }

artwork { Jean-Michel Basquiat, Tuxedo, 1982 }

I’m going to tell you a little story about a menstruating nurse.

Dr. Bela Schick, a doctor in the 1920s, was a very popular doctor and received flowers from his patients all the time. One day he received one of his usual bouquets from a patient. The way the story goes, he asked one of his nurses to put the bouquet in some water. The nurse politely declined. Dr. Schick asked the nurse again, and again she refused to handle the flowers. When Dr. Schick questioned his nurse why she would not put the flowers in water, she explained that she had her period. When he asked why that mattered, she confessed that when she menstruated, she made flowers wilt at her touch.

Dr. Schick decided to run a test. Gently place flowers in water on the one hand… and have a menstruating woman roughly handle another bunch in order to really get her dirty hands on them.

The flowers that were not handled thrived, while the flowers that were handled by a menstruating woman wilted.

This was the beginning of the study of the menstrual toxin, or menotoxin, a substance secreted in the sweat of menstruating women.

{ Scientific American | Continue reading }

photo { Andres Marroquin Winkelmann }

Whence the female orgasm? After 40 years of debate evolutionary biologists are no closer to deciding whether it evolved to give women a reproductive boost, or whether it is simply a by-product of male orgasm evolution. The latest attempt to settle the dispute involves quizzing some 10,000 twins and pairs of siblings on their sexual habits.

Some evolutionary biologists reckon the female orgasm is adaptive and possibly influences mate choice, strengthens pair bonds or indirectly helps to suck sperm into the uterus. Others argue that women have orgasms for the same reason that men have nipples – being highly adaptive in one sex, the traits tag along for the ride in the other.

{ NewScientist | Continue reading }

photo { Hiroshi Watanabe }

Regular and moderate alcohol consumption in working middle-aged women has been found to improve their health by helping them to ‘wind down’.

The new study, published in PLoS Medicine today, analysed data from the U.S. Nurse’s Health Study, a long-term study that has tracked the health conditions of 121,700 female nurses since 1976. (…)

The researchers found that those middle-aged women (median age 58 years) who drank five to 15 grams of alcohol per day were 20% more likely to have good overall health when older, in comparison to non-drinkers.

{ Cosmos | Continue reading }