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POPSTen cognitive distortions that mess you up David Burns is a pioneer in popularizing the cognitive-behavioral approach to mood therapy developed by Aaron Beck. As someone who has struggled on and off with crippling depression my whole life, I have found this list of "cognitive distortions" pretty useful in reframing certain elements of my thinking.
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POPS6 Key Social Skills Obvious? Perhaps not - judging by how people often respond in social situations - where 'me' is the most important subject
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POPSFriendship: The Laws of Attraction Friendship: The Laws of Attraction The conventional wisdom is that we choose friends because of who they are. But it turns out that we actually love them because of the way they support who we are. By:Karen Karbo
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POPSThey did not give up R. H. Macy failed seven times before his store in New York City caught on. When Bell telephone was struggling to get started, its owners offered all their rights to Western Union for $100,000. The offer was disdainfully rejected with the pronouncement, "What use could this company make of an electrical toy." Rocket scientist Robert Goddard found his ideas bitterly rejected by his scientific peers on the grounds that rocket propulsion would not work An expert said of Vince Lombardi: "He possesses minimal football knowledge and lacks motivation." Michael Jordan and Bob Cousy were each cut from their high school basketball teams. Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because "he lacked imagination and had no good ideas." After Fred Astaire's first screen test, the memo from the testing director of MGM, dated 1933, read, "Can't act. Can't sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little." When Lucille Ball began studying to be actress, she was to"Try any other profes
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POPSRepetition Makes False Beliefs Permanent Politicians and other unscrupulous types have long exploited what psychological studies are now confirming: due to the neurophysiology of the learning process, simple repetitive association between two concepts is enough to make false propositions "feel" true and well-supported. Worse, after enough exposure to such associations, subsequent denials can strengthen the perception of the falsehood instead of weakening it. (This is a major reason why the stigma of a false accusation can persist even after innocence is proven.) Indeed, repetition seems to be a key culprit. Things that are repeated often become more accessible in memory, and one of the brain's subconscious rules of thumb is that easily recalled things are true.
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POPSAwesome research/ Homework resource I only found this the other day and mostly I'm clipping it for my own uses; however, it's a great resource and I thought I'd share. The site itself has pretty cool info too. 'Hope you guys like the clip.
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POPSComplete List of PsychTests and quizzes There are 4 categories, career,I.Q.,personality,and relationships. There are the free tests, and of course many more available to members. I'm not sure of the conditions behind the membership tests, but so far I'm having enough fun with the free ones.
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POPSThe language you speak affects your personality A study of bilingual women suggests that when you switch from speaking one language to another, your personality and your perceptions change as well. I've experienced this myself switching between German and English.
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POPSWhy The Loudest are Often the Most Wrong This classic paper by Kruger and Dunning, Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments , examines the psychological reasons for the unfortunately common correlation between ignorance and confidence. We argue that when people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, like Mr. Wheeler, they are left with the mistaken impression that they are doing just fine. As Miller (1993) perceptively observed in the quote that opens this article, and as Charles Darwin (1871) sagely noted over a century ago, "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." ( PDF here .)
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POPSSchizophrenia: The Curse That's Almost a Blessing
A recent study may have found what kind of process goes awry in schizophrenic brains. Researchers found that DISC1 regulates the migration of new neurons in the adult brain. When the levels of DISC1 were reduced in mice during adult neurogenesis, the newborn neurons sped up and overshot their intended targets within the hippocampus, When the neurons finally reached their destinations, they forged an unusual number of connections with neighboring cells, a series of events that might give rise to the abnormal—and quite crippling—brain functions associated with schizophrenia, according to Hongjun Song, a Johns Hopkins neurologist who also worked on the study. It is possible, Song says, that further research will lead to a drug that treats schizophrenia by restoring normal neurogenesis. So what evolutionary advantage could schizophrenia-related genes bring to people who have some of the genes but not the disease? For now, this remains one of the many open questions.