Are We Feeling Too Good About Ourselves?
Self-esteem has become a tenet of the psychological canon and is so ingrained in popular wisdom and parenting techniques as to seem like natural law: The higher a person's self-esteem, the happier, more productive, and more mentally healthy that person will be. Psychologist Jean M. Twenge cites a fascinating statistic. In the 1950s, just 12 percent of teens age fourteen to sixteen agreed with the ... posted on Aug 10 2008, 3,820 reads

Harry Potter and the Power of Imagination
"One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working in the research department at Amnesty International's headquarters in London." So... posted on Aug 07 2008, 2,877 reads

Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious
Two years ago, when Malcolm Gladwell published his best-selling “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking,” readers throughout the world were introduced to the ideas of Gerd Gigerenzer, a German social psychologist. known in social science circles for his breakthrough studies on the nature of intuitive thinking. Before his research, this was a topic often dismissed as crazed superstition.... posted on Jul 12 2008, 5,595 reads

Acts of Reconciliation
In a way, it's a story of two diamond engagement rings. Laura Waters Hinson sits in the Discovery Channel building at the Silverdocs film festival, flashing a brilliant stone on each hand, explaining how she got here. A couple of weeks ago, the 29-year-old won the top documentary prize at the Student Academy Awards in Los Angeles for "As We Forgive," her film about reconciliation in Rwanda between... posted on Jul 09 2008, 5,118 reads

How to Stop Procrastinating
More than once during your ongoing game of dodge-the-guy-in-accounting, you have pondered the obvious: Why don't I just fill out the form already? Why is it that I still haven't turned in an expense report from months ago? You can take solace in the fact that you are, at least, not alone. "Everyone procrastinates," says Joseph Ferrari, a DePaul University psychology professor who has extensively r... posted on Jun 24 2008, 5,309 reads

How To Live With Just 100 Things
Excess consumption is practically a modern-world religion. But as anyone with a filled-to-the-gills closet knows, the things we accumulate can become oppressive. With all this stuff piling up and never quite getting put away, we're no longer huddled masses yearning to breathe free; we're huddled masses yearning to free up space on a countertop. Which is why people are so intrigued by the 100 Thing... posted on Jun 11 2008, 6,758 reads

Meditation Literally Saves a Life
It was a cool early spring day in the eastern coastal port of Ningbo. 52 year old, Wang Jianxin was on a construction site digging a 5-metre ditch. Without warning, a wall of the ditch collapsed, burying Mr. Wang under a huge pile of earth. "It was suddenly dark and I realised what had happened and found that there was a small air pocket in front of me," Mr. Wang said. That was when he turned to... posted on Jun 01 2008, 7,777 reads

Cash or Compliment?
It really does pay off to be nice to others. Researchers now point out that giving people a compliment activates the same reward center in the brain as paying them cash! "We found that these seemingly different kinds of rewards -- a good reputation versus money -- are biologically coded by the same neural structure, the striatum," said Dr. Norihiro Sadato in Japan.... posted on May 26 2008, 2,729 reads

Becoming A Creature of New Habits
"Habits are a funny thing. We reach for them mindlessly, setting our brains on auto-pilot and relaxing into the unconscious comfort of familiar routine. In the ever-changing 21st century, even the word "habit" carries a negative connotation. So it seems antithetical to talk about habits in the same context as creativity and innovation. But brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously... posted on May 07 2008, 5,485 reads

The Power of Play
Over the last two decades, more than 30,000 schools in the United States have eliminated recess to make more time for academics. From 1997 to 2003, children's time spent outdoors fell 50 percent, according to a study by Sandra Hofferth. Hofferth also found that the amount of time children spend in organized sports has doubled, and the number of minutes children devote each week to passive leisure,... posted on May 06 2008, 3,456 reads