Think about the last time you helped someone out. Maybe you sent a supportive text to a stressed-out friend or gave directions to a lost stranger. How did it make you feel?
"They may take our lives, but they will never take our freedom!" This often parodied quote from Mel Gibson’s William Wallace in the film Braveheart is something of a contradiction, and yet its sentiment is easy to understand. Nothing gets our hackles up more than being told that we have no choice over something.
- By Andy Turner
The US Open championship tennis tournament is well and truly underway. Venus and Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer are all expected to compete at the National Tennis Centre in New York over the next few weeks.
- By Carol Clark
Even before toddlers can form a complete sentence, they’re attuned to how others may be judging them, according to a new study. The findings, which appear in Developmental Psychology, show that toddlers are sensitive to the opinions of others, and will modify their behavior accordingly when others are watching.
From “girls suck at maths” and “men are so insensitive” to “he is getting a bit senile with age” or “black people struggle at university”, there’s no shortage of common cultural stereotypes about social groups. Chances are you have heard most of these examples at some point. In fact, stereotypes are a bit like air: invisible but always present.
Small changes in how choices are presented or designed can have a big impact on our behaviour. Governments are taking advantage of this to “nudge” us into making better choices without removing our right to choose. Instead of taxing sugar in drinks, for instance, simply changing how food is arranged in shops can make people eat healthier.
- By Olivia Remes
Anxiety disorders are some of the most common mental health problems today. In fact, four out of every 100 people around the world have one, and research my colleagues and I were involved in at the University of Cambridge has shown that women and young people under the age of 39 are most affected. Anxiety disorders reportedly cost the healthcare system and employers over US$42 billion each year in the US alone, and if left untreated or unattended, can lead to depression, substance use, and suicide.
The unconventional children’s television pioneer celebrated dignity and kindness in the age of mass media. Kids have it really hard right now. Many adults have forgotten that a world where children are safe and cared for with dignity is not a utopian vision, but a necessity.
“Another morning, another bit of casual misogyny & abuse”, ABC journalist Leigh Sales lamented last week after receiving a tweet accusing her of “virtually” performing sexual acts on her 7.30 guests. Sales’s comments draw our attention back to the abuse routinely encountered by women, people of colour and LGBTQ people on social media. Indeed, such online encounters appear to be so routine for journalists such as Sales that they are a mundane occurrence.
When you dwell on frustration, the focus on negative thoughts can make daily tasks more challenging. It is not unusual to experience tension. And tension could put you into a negative state before there is real difficulty. If the suggestions offered here don’t fit your situation, use them as a starting place to do your own brainstorming. Changing the atmosphere may be a work in progress...
Picking our fingernails, eating a quart of ice cream at a single sitting, or mandatory daily vigorous exercise. Frequent prescription drug or alcohol use. Addictions are a reliance on any substance or activity that masks our emotions and provides an immediate but temporary dose of pleasure and distraction.
If you’re a woman, then you’ve definitely experienced the frustration of standing in a long, slow-moving queue for the toilets while watching men quickly go in and out of theirs. And you’ve likely had the same conversation with others in that queue - “Jeez, why does it always take so long!”
Fairy tales have always had amazing, wearable tech: from the red shoes and the glass slipper to puss’s boots. Disney’s latest princess, Shuri, the Wakandan teen genius of Marvel’s Black Panther (2018), showing off the “sneakers” she has designed and developed, is the most recent hero to understand a shoe’s potential.
- By Sapna Parikh
“Societies try and build those things that will protect their populations—to build infrastructures, civic institutions, effective governance,” says David Abramson, clinical associate professor at the New York University College of Global Public Health and director of the Population Impact, Recovery, and Resilience Program. “But when a disaster strikes, it threatens them.”
Many of us worry about some big things that are yet to come or might never come. We worry about finances, natural disasters, emergencies, terrorism and acts of war, health, and aging, among other things. Some things we have a capacity to prepare for...
It is a common exhortation: live authentically. But what does authenticity actually mean? As a psychological concept, authenticity simply means embracing who you really are, at your very core, and acting in accordance to your own values and beliefs. Many social psychologists, such as myself, also take a layperson’s approach to the definition. In other words, authenticity is a subjective judgment. Only we ourselves are privy to when we are behaving authentically or not.
- By Michael Li
A sort of interesting fact is that, while today programming is viewed as an extremely male dominated field, it was totally the opposite at the dawn of computing. So if you look at who the original programmers were, they were actually women! All programmers from the very beginning were women and it was because this job was seen as being “beneath” men.
We experience thousands of events across childhood, and yet as adults we recall only a handful. Some might be “firsts” (our first ice cream, our first day at school), or significant life events (the birth of a sibling, moving house). Others are surprisingly trivial. So, what do your earliest childhood memories say about you? Do they reflect your early skill for remembering, your interests, or your individual experiences?
Sparkly jewellery, expensive shoes, designer watches – who doesn’t love a bit of “bling”? In 2017 Australians spent A$28.5 billion on ornamenting themselves with clothing, cosmetics, and accessories. But this obsession with decorating our bodies isn’t just a trivial activity. Archaeological evidence shows us it’s actually a large part of what makes us human.
As fact check editor at The Conversation, Lucinda Beaman sees first-hand the conflict between facts and beliefs. She offers a framework for understanding how we process information and how we can connect with those who disagree with us.
Exams are an almost unavoidable part of young people’s lives – and, inevitably, some people perform better than others. But what is more important than taking exams is how students manage the results of their exams – especially if they aren’t what was expected. When the results are negative, it can be easy to come up with automatic thoughts such as “I will never succeed in my life”, “I’ve disappointed my parents”, or “everyone is better than me”.
When a person of colour with light skin rises to prominence, or becomes the first to occupy a particular position, it’s often heralded as a sign that structural barriers to the progress of people of colour have been removed. This was the case when Meghan Markle married Prince Harry in May, joining the British royal family as the Duchess of Sussex.
Have you ever thought you were in love only to be told by the one you admire that he or she wants to break up with you? Have you ever applied for a job and been told the organization or company chose someone else? Have you ever applied to a school or program and been declined entry?