Tag: psychology

Photo by Joe WilcoxDec 26, 20239:31 pm

Is This How You Feel?

Lots of people do, and I hope not you. Humility mixed with heap loads of gratitude is a better way to end the year. We are entitled to nothing. Most everything we have comes from somewhere else. Modern society is built on the sacrifices of those who came before us. We are indebted.

Do you grow your own food? Drill, extract, and process the gasoline for your vehicle? Generate the electricity that powers your home? Pick and mill the cotton for clothes you bought rather than made? Fresh water is piped to your home and toilet water piped away—all from infrastructure that you didn’t build, right?

Living by Joe WilcoxJul 11, 20106:30 pm

Are Night Owls Brighter, or Just Late-Night TV Watchers?

There are some things that really go oddly together, like sleep and intelligence. This week I saw several blog posts and tweets referring to Psychology Today article “Intelligence: The Evolution of Night Owls.” That people are talking about the article demonstrates the distressing power of the social Web. The article posted on Nov. 1, 2009, so it’s not exactly new. Matthew Hutson recounts—and without substantive details—a sleep and intelligence study.

Health by Joe WilcoxApr 4, 20066:14 pm

Not So Fast

I really dig the New York Times redesign that launched yesterday. There’s something blog meets print paper about the new layout. I’m reading more than ever, and I love the great emphasis on digital content. Strange, I likely will continue subscribing to the Sunday paper, which gets opens access to online premium content.

Anyway, today I devoured story “Living on Impulse“, which I probably would have missed if not for the redesign. Reporter Benedict Carey masterfully gets to the bottom of science studies about impulsive behavior. His story is non-fiction, science writing at its best.

Politics by Joe WilcoxJan 24, 20068:51 pm

This is Your Brain on Politics

Last night I fumed on about closed-minded evolutionists and creationists, neither of which is probably right but both think their position is absolute truth. Maybe science has an explanation for them in their good friends the politicians.

LiveScience.com today reports on a new study to be released about how politicians think. Researchers from Emory University MRI-scanned politicians’ brains while presenting them information about the “their preferred candidate prior to the 2004 Presidential election”. The results were surprising, or maybe not, depending on pre-conceptions about politicians.