Remarkable new research suggests that conventional assumptions about how we mature are wrong – and that young people do not become true adults until they are 24
via Teenage plus: The new adolescence – Life & Style – The Independent. Continue reading “Teenage plus: The new adolescence”
Siblings share both genes and environment. Why, then, are they often so different? For most of history, psychologists thought of the study of siblings as backwater: Parenting was important — siblings were not.
Then in the 1980s, a researcher named Robert Plomin published a surprising paper in which he reviewed the three main ways psychologists had studied siblings: physical characteristics, intelligence and personality. According to Plomin, in two of these areas, siblings were really quite similar.
Physically, siblings tended to differ somewhat, but they were a lot more similar on average when compared to children picked at random from the population. That’s also true of cognitive abilities.
“The surprise,” says Plomin, “is when you turn to personality.” Turns out that on tests that measure personality — stuff like how extroverted you are, how conscientious — siblings are practically like strangers.
I was recently reminded of some reading I did in college, way back in the last century, by a British historian arguing that the critical technology, for the early phase of the industrial revolution, was gin.
The transformation from rural to urban life was so sudden, and so wrenching, that the only thing society could do to manage was to drink itself into a stupor for a generation. The stories from that era are amazing– there were gin pushcarts working their way through the streets of London. Alcoholism was also rampant in the US, during our industrial Revolution, until Prohibition’s push-back. Continue reading “What Gin & Sitcoms Have In Common”
Findings suggest that disparities in moneymaking play a significant role in infidelity, at least among the young couples they studied. “With women, they were less likely to engage in infidelity the less money they make relative to their husband,” said study author Christin Munsch. “But for men, the less money you make relative to your spouse, the more likely you are to engage in infidelity.”
Helen Fisher, an anthropologist and research professor at Rutgers University, said it makes sense that men with more money would be more likely to fool around. “He probably travels a lot and drives nicer cars, and he’s probably in finer restaurants. He’s advertising the kind of resources that women are looking for from an evolutionary perspective,” she said. “Around the world, women go for men who are on the top of the pile.”
But there’s less reason, from an evolutionary perspective, for a man to stray if he makes less money than his female partner, she said. “You’d think a man would want to stick around those resources himself. That may have more of a purely psychological explanation.”
As for women, she said, wealth brings them a greater power to do what they want, whether it’s leave a bad relationship or have an affair.
How long will your marriage last? Depends on if you smoke, which church you go to, and which state you live in. Anneli Rufus on the shocking statistics.
via Divorce Stats That Can Predict Your Marriage’s Success – The Daily Beast.
“People used to sit and listen to music,” Mr. Fremer said, but the increased portability has altered the way people experience recorded music. “It was an activity. It is no longer consumed as an event that you pay attention to.”
Instead, music is often carried from place to place, played in the background while the consumer does something else — exercising, commuting or cooking dinner.
The songs themselves are usually saved on the digital devices in a compressed format, often as an AAC or MP3 file. That compression shrinks the size of the file, eliminating some of the sounds and range contained on a CD while allowing more songs to be saved on the device and reducing download times.
via A Musical Revolution, With a Cost in Fidelity – NYTimes.com.
A lot of the myths we think of in terms of middle age, myths that I grew up with, turn out to be based on almost nothing. Things like the midlife crisis or the empty nest syndrome. We’re brought up to think we’ll enter middle age and it will be kind of gloomy. But as scientists look at real people, they find out the contrary. We used to think we lost 30 percent of our brain cells as we age. But that’s not true. We keep them.
One study of men found that well-being peaked at age 65. Over and over they find that middle age, instead of being a time of depression and decline, is actually a time of being more optimistic overall. Continue reading “Middle-Aged Myths”
Unbeknownst to most mainstream Facebook users, the social network actually offers a slew of privacy controls and security features which can help you batten down the hatches, so to speak. If used properly, you’ll never have to worry about whether you should friend the boss and your mom. You can friend anyone you want while comfortable in the knowledge that not everyone gets to see everything you post.
The problem in implementing these privacy options is that they’re just too confusing for most non-tech savvy people to handle. And often, folks don’t want to bother to take the time to learn. To simplify the process, we’re offering five easy steps you can take today to help make your Facebook experience safer, more secure, and more private.
via 5 Easy Steps to Stay Safe (and Private!) on Facebook – NYTimes.com. Continue reading “Protect Yourself On Facebook -5 Easy Steps”
1. I wish Google Maps had an “Avoid Ghetto” routing option.
2. More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can’t wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that’s not only better, but also more directly involves me.
3. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.