Quote of the day
Ambiguous tasks are a good place to observe how personality traits bubble to the surface. Although few of us are elite soldiers, we’ve all experienced the kind of psychological distress these trainees encounter on their training run: managing unclear expectations, struggling with self-motivation, and balancing the use of social support with private reflection. These issues are endemic not only to the workplace, but also to relationships, health, and every aspect of life in which we seek to thrive and succeed. Not surprisingly, the leading predictor of success in elite military training programs is the same quality that distinguishes those best equipped to resolve marital conflict, to achieve favorable deal terms in business negotiations, and to bestow the gifts of good parenting on their children: the ability to tolerate psychological discomfort.
~TODD KASHDAN, author of The Upside of Your Dark Side
HEALTH
Researchers say when you eat each day may be crucial to weight loss [The Every-Other-Day Diet
], WSJ | Tweet
Most diet advice focuses on calories and nutrients, but new research suggests that when you eat may be just as important.
Can hugs make you healthier?, Salon | Tweet
New research sheds light on the major health benefits of social support.
PSYCHOLOGY
Should you control or harness negative emotions? [The Upside of Your Dark Side]
, Psychology Today | Tweet
Here’s what the recent generation of emotion researchers have uncovered – on their own, negative emotions are neither good nor bad. Emotions provide information. The problem is when they hinder important life goals or when people exert finite time and energy to get rid of these emotions so that fewer resources are available to invest in more meaningful pursuits.
How do we increase empathy? [The Better Angels of Our Nature]
, NYT | Tweet
Researchers have found that reading literary fiction by the likes of Don DeLillo or Alice Munro–but not beach fiction or nonfiction–can promote empathy.
THE MIND
Our brains respond to corporations as if they are people [Incognito
], Research Digest | Tweet
The US Supreme Court has recently made a number of rulings that suggest it sees corporations as having similar rights and responsibilities to individual human beings, such as that they have the right to free speech, and can be exempt from laws that contradict their owner’s religious beliefs. Can a new neuroimaging study help us determine whether the Court’s approach is justified?
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
7 key differences between being mentally strong and acting tough [13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do]
, Forbes | Tweet
Truly successful people don’t rise to the top by acting tough; they become better by growing stronger. Being a top performer – whether it’s in business or on the athletic field – requires grit and tenacity, as well as the continuous desire to become better.
TECHNOLOGY
Where’s Wally?
There’s an algorithm for that, The Guardian | Tweet
A researcher has used machine learning to examine the 68 Where’s Wally books – and developed a algorithm to find him more efficiently.
ENTERTAINMENT
Why Hollywwod is now trying to save film after all its digital trailblazing, Quartz | Tweet
The biggest Hollywood studios recently reached a deal with Kodak to continue to supply them with film stock for at least for “a few” more years to make their movies. That is quite an investment on both sides—Kodak says it costs $50 million a year to keep manufacturing film—and a big turnaround for an industry that has spent the better part of the last decade pushing digital and sounding the death knell for film.
WRITING
10 common fiction problems and how to fix them [Write and Revise for Publication
], Elizabeth Spann | Tweet
When you write and revise your fiction, you deal with a host of problems. With some novels, it’s hard to decide on the right point of view. With others, it’s a struggle to work out the plot. Sometimes it’s a matter of getting the language down just right. Of course it’s one thing to spot a problem, another to fix it. Consider the following ten rather typical problems most fiction writers face—and some possible fixes.
The smart way to open a story, courtesy of Charles Baxter [There’s Something I Want You to Do
], Medium | Tweet
You don’t have to set a Chevrolet on fire or have someone murdered on the first page to get the reader’s attention