What Makes A Person Charismatic?
Why do some people so clearly have it and others don’t? Why do we fall so easily under its influence? Charismatics can make us feel charmed and great about ourselves. They can inspire us to excel. But they can also be dangerous. They use charisma for their own purposes, to enhance their power, to manipulate others.
Before Tinder, There Was Dateline
Operation Match was a computer dating service started at Harvard in 1965 by two undergraduates, that paired students together for dates for $3 a pop. Students filled in questionnaires which were processed by an IBM 1401 before receiving the names and telephone numbers of their matches in the post.
The Soul-Expanding Value Of Difficulty
You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any agitation, any pain, any melancholy, since you really do not know what these states are working upon you?
L’Oréal’s Clip-on Sensor Tracks Your Exposure To UV Rays
The future of wearable skincare technology is roughly the size of an M&M. L’Oréal’s La Roche-Posay My Skin Track UV sensor clips onto clothing and measures the wearer’s exposure to UV radiation, a form of radiation that is known to damage skin and, in large amounts, cause skin cancer.
Letting Slower Passengers Board Airplane First Really Is Faster, Study Finds
Commercial airlines often prioritize boarding for passengers traveling with small children, or for those who need extra assistance, before starting to board the faster passengers. It’s counter-intuitive, but it turns out that letting slower passengers board first actually results in a more efficient process.
How Being Bullied Affects Your Adulthood
Years after being mistreated, people with adult post-bullying syndrome commonly struggle with trust and self-esteem, and develop psychiatric problems, professor Ellen Walser deLara’s research found. Some become people-pleasers, or rely on food, alcohol, or drugs to cope.
How Psychology Is Just Catching Up With The Effects Of Online Hate
Lindsay Ellis is a video essayist. She makes videos commenting on films, TV shows, and other media. More than 860,000 people subscribe to her YouTube channel. But there is also this difficult aspect to what Ellis does: online hate.
Becoming A “Mindful Drinker” Changed My Life
Sober curiosity is spawning both a philosophical movement whose adherents have holidays (Dry January and Sober October) and is creating an industry through sober influencers; nonalcoholic beer, wine, and “spirits”; dry bars; dry events; and sophisticated cocktails without alcohol.
This Company Hired Anyone Who Applied. Now It’s Starting A Movement
Greyston Bakery uses a practice of open hiring: filling positions on a first-come, first-served basis, no questions asked. Now it wants to teach other companies how to do the same. Open hiring creates a pipeline for careers on the bakery’s manufacturing floor and throughout the rest of the company’s operations.
The Music In You
The more psychologists investigate musicality, the more it seems that nearly all of us are musical experts, in quite a startling sense. You might not be a virtuoso, but you have remarkable music abilities. You just don’t know about them yet.
Learn How To Avoid Distraction In A World That Is Full Of It
If distraction becomes a habit, we are unable to sustain the focus required for creativity in our professional and personal lives. Worse, if we are constantly pulled away from friends and family by distractions, we miss out on cultivating the relationships we need for our psychological well-being.
An Ode To Being Old
Success in business, even in the fast-paced start-up world, isn’t just about age-related smarts. Wisdom, a deeper kind of knowing that can only be gained through experience, matters too. And apparently, it matters quite a bit.
“Quadrangle”, Award-Winning Doc About Marriage And Divorce
A documentary about two ‘conventional’ couples that swapped partners and lived in a group marriage in the early 70s, hoping to pioneer an alternative to divorce and pave the way for how people would live in the future.
Scientists Found Ancient, Never-Before-Seen Viruses In A Glacier
Researchers have recovered evidence of ancient viruses in the glacier ice, including 28 viral groups that are new to science. As our planet undergoes climate change, these frozen records can inform predictions about which microorganisms will survive, and what the resulting environment will look like.
How Silicon Valley Ruined Work Culture
More and more offices are adopting the work culture invented by the technology upstarts. These are not the offices where your grandparents worked, clocking out at 5 sharp, eyeballing the corner office. There is no corner office here—just “hot desks” and open floor plans, wide as the prairie.
Are You Really The ‘Real’ You?
What rational cogs are turning for people when they change their minds about who they are? Are beliefs about ourselves even the kind of thing we can be rational about, when we’re the ones who make those beliefs true?
What Happened To American Childhood?
The percentage of 12-to-17-year-olds who had experienced a major depressive episode in the previous year shot up from 8 percent to 13 percent. Among girls, the rate was even higher; in 2017, one in five reported experiencing major depression. Here’s what we can do about it.
The Surprising Psychology Of Dieting And Plate Design
You’ve probably heard the idea that using smaller plates and bowls can affect your perception of how much you’re eating, thereby helping you eat less. But how well does it work? A new study sheds light on that popular theory, finding that if you’re really hungry, it doesn’t work.
The Price Of Plenty: How Beef Changed America
Exploitation and predatory pricing drove the transformation of the US beef industry – and created the model for modern agribusiness. The industrial slaughterhouse was a triumph of human ingenuity as well as a site of brutal labor exploitation.
Why Aren’t More Millennials Having Kids And Becoming Parents?
I just got married a few months ago. Once my husband and I entered wedded bliss, we started looking to do married-people things that weren’t in the song: buy a house, get our 401(k)s figured out, assess health-care plans. But the baby in the baby carriage? For now, the kid question hangs between us, unanswered.
“Quadrangle”, How A Group Marriage Went Terribly Wrong
In 1969, two “conventional” married couples met, swapped partners, and lived in a group marriage, hoping to pioneer an alternative to divorce. It didn’t work. “Quadrangle” was directed by Amy Grappell.