-
By Alison Gopnik, the New York Times An excerpt: Humphrey, an emeritus professor of psychology at the London School of Economics, may not have solved the mind-body problem, and there is something to be said for the awkward geekery of philosophical analysis and experimental data. But he has some really...
-
By Carl Zimmer, Discover magazine The past and future may seem like different worlds, yet the two are intimately intertwined in our minds. In recent studies on mental time travel, neuroscientists found that we use many of the same regions of the brain to remember the past as we do to envision our future...
-
By Carl Zimmer, Discover magazine 3/24/11 Excerpt: Teenagers are a puzzle, and not just to their parents. When kids pass from childhood to adolescence their mortality rate doubles, despite the fact that teenagers are stronger and faster than children as well as more resistant to disease. Parents and...
-
By Josh Tapper, Guelph Mercury News August 10, 2010 Although adults older than 65 face challenges to body and brain, the 70s and 80s also bring an abundance of social and emotional knowledge, qualities scientists are beginning to define as wisdom. As Carstensen and another social psychologist, Fredda...
-
By Charles Q. Choi "The dozen students and scientists spread over an area called Furnace Creek looked like cyborgs in floppy hats scrabbling over the boulders. Before hammering chips off rocks, they inspected them with magnifying lenses held up next to eyeglasses sporting miniature cameras and infrared...
-
by Melinda Wenner from Scientific American " Fantasizing about sex gets more than just your juices flowing—it also boosts your analytical thinking skills. Daydreaming about love, on the other hand, makes you more creative, according to a study published in the November 2009 Personality and Social...
-
by Natalie Angier in The New York Times "The theory of relativity showed us that time and space are intertwined. To which our smarty-pants body might well reply: Tell me something I didn’t already know, Einstein. Researchers at the University of Aberdeen found that when people were asked to engage...
-
By Aditya Chakrabortty from The Guardian "Of all the virtues, heroism is now the most remote. Heroes are either mythic or historical characters (Achilles or Gandhi) or they are superhuman (Spider-Man, or even 9/11 firefighters). What they are not is one of us. Our age has role models and it has...
-
by Ray Tallis from New Scientist "Most neuroscientists, philosophers of the mind and science journalists feel the time is near when we will be able to explain the mystery of human consciousness in terms of the activity of the brain. There is, however, a vocal minority of neurosceptics who contest...
-
by Janelle Weaver for Wired Science "Social butterflies who shine at parties may get their edge from special genes that make them experts at recognizing faces. Scientists have found the strongest evidence to date that genes govern how well we keep track of who’s who. The findings suggest that face...
-
Although humans strive to be wise, they often fail to do so when reasoning over issues that have profound personal implications. Here we test the hypothesis that psychological distance enhances wise reasoning, attitudes and behavior under such circumstances. Two experiments demonstrate that cueing people...
-
By Judith Glück and Susan Bluck Objectives. This study examined individual differences in laypeople's conceptions of wisdom using a person-oriented approach, as previous studies using a priori group variables may have underestimated the variability. Although there is a tradition of examining people's...
-
“Wisdom is the freedom and the ability to make the kinds of choices that move our life forward and benefit the planet.” Wisdom is actually a “How” we make our best choices and not a “what we choose or “why we choose it.” Wisdom is the antidote for the choices that keep us mired in a world of negative...
-
By Lewis P. Jordan Abstract: There is very little research on Alaska Native (AN) elders and how they subjectively define a successful older age. The lack of a culturally-specific definition often results in the use of a generic definition that portrays Alaska Native elders as aging less successfully...
-
In my reply to Taylor, Bates, and Webster’s article, I (a) clarify the development and assessment of the Three-Dimensional Wisdom Scale (3D-WS), (b) describe the difference between the essential components of wisdom and its predictors, correlates, and consequences, and (c) conduct additional bivariate...
-
This chapter gives an overview of the definition and assessment of wisdom in the contemporary literature and describes its relation to successful cognitive and emotional aging.
-
By Dilip V. Jeste, Monika Ardelt, Dan Blazer, Helena C. Kraemer, George Vaillant and Thomas W. Meeks Purpose: Wisdom has received increasing attention in empirical research in recent years, especially in gerontology and psychology, but consistent definitions of wisdom remain elusive. We sought to better...
-
by Igor Grossmann, Jinkyung Na, Michael E. W. Varnum, Denise C. Park, Shinobu Kitayama, and Richard E. Nisbett It is well documented that aging is associated with cognitive declines in many domains. Yet it is a common lay belief that some aspects of thinking improve into old age. Speci fi cally, older...
-
What wisdom is and what it encompasses has been variously defined across the ages, starting with the earliest ‘wisdom literature' among the ancient Sumerians in 3000 B.C. (Birren and Svensson, 2005). Distinctions between wisdom as knowledge of the material and social world ( episteme or scientia...
-
By: Monique M. H. Pollman and Catrin Finkenauer Understanding is at the heart of intimate relationships. It is unclear, however, whether understanding—partners’ subjective feeling that they understand each other—or knowledge—partners’ accurate knowledge of each other—is more important for relationship...