PT Staff

The warming of the workplace

Discusses how electronic communication takes away many regulators of behavior that exist among in-person groups. Cold, heartless computers; Computer mail; More.

A conversation stopper

Offers a look at dual-task interference and states that our minds simply won't let us perform certain activities at the same time. Explanation for why some people can't walk and chew gum at the same time; Confirmation by Harold Pashler; Cognitive limitations; Important implications for the understanding of attention.

Ozzie-bashing

States that the days of the Cleavers and the Nelsons were not so wonderful at all. Families have never lived up to nostalgic notions about the way things used to be; Stephanie Coontz's book 'The Way We Never Were'; Number of children who live in poverty today is the same as earlier in the century; Other myths about how wonderful the past was; The traditional family of the 1950s was a historical fluke.

Phantom friends

Reports that a team of Yale University psychologists found that pretend playmates produce a happy and creative adulthood. Led by Jerome Singer; Doesn't support the belief that children with imaginary playmates are shy; Flowering of the imagination.

Bambino San

Discusses how certain martial arts facilitate a many-sided integral development of human nature. Aikido; Japanese baseball player Sadaharu Oh; Background and information on his professional career and achievements; Comments; Hiroshi Arakawa; More.

Southern discomfort

Different emotional meanings; University of Michigan researcher, Richard E. Nisbett's conclusions; Southern cultural code of honor source of this violence; Higher rates of violence in small Southern towns; Homicide; Specific instances of violence; More.

When spouses grouse

Reports that the link between behavior and heart disease is how you handle negative emotions, specifically your anger. Study that followed 192 couples; Nine out of twelve men who died of cancer were married to women who suppressed anger; Study by also; Anger-coping styles also affected the cardiovascular health of husbands and wives; Details.

Down and out of it

Discusses why poor people are more likely to suffer from psychiatric disorders. Those of low socioeconomic status experience more stress and adversity; Drift downward of the vulnerable; Results of a study of the illness; Columbia University psychologist Bruce P. Dohrenwend.

Only Six and Knows How to Nasty?

Sexual play in children is normal, but it may not always be healthy.

Lessons for a stuck society

Presents Laura Chasin, a family therapist who, thinking she and her colleagues possessed skills that may lead ideological warriors to a more productive exchange, organized The Conversation Project. Model for movement on polarized political and social issues; Personalize the political; Invite combatants to recast beliefs as personal stories and experience; Borrows technique from strategic family therapy; Acknowledges anxiety about opening up; More.

Your Brother's (Score) Keeper

Why can siblings turn out so differently?

Working Abroad

Few women are sent overseas. Find out what you can do to get the job.

When to Fire Your Parents

All parent-child relationships changeas the children grow up.

The male/female thing

Presents various statistics excerpted from the book 'She Said, He Said: What Men and Women Really Think About Money, Sex, Politics, and Other Issues of Essence,' by Elizabeth J. Wood and Floris W. Wood about issues from both male and female points of view. Life and death; Family; Money and jobs; Sex; Politics; Sixth sense.

Battle of the sexes

Examines the differences of men and women, while facing opponents in formal debates on television, when running for political office. Female candidates stay within their time limit, don't switch topics, or interrupt; Results in appearing less powerful; Crucial information may not be relayed; Power grabs by male debaters include extending allotted time, speaking out of turn, shifting topics; Men and women socialized to conduct conversations differently.

Anatomy of attention

States that scientists studying the links between the brain and behavior find that attention is a general activity of the brain, but it does not entail a general improvement in all brain systems involved in stimulus processing. Study conducted by Michael Posner; Positron emission tomography (PET); The two main centers of attention functions; Details.

Blues of the birth

Offers a look several reasons for postpartum depression. American's are unrealistic; Fantasy version of events; Disappointment inevitable; Urge for mothers to be gentle on themselves.

The vogue for vague

Discusses what it takes to become a model and states that we have personality traits that draw us to certain occupations. Models refuse to see anything negative; Vagueness is the model's life theme; They live in a perfect world; Rhoda Fisher, Ph.D.

'I carried it too far, that's for sure.'

Presents Joan Ullman's first-person report from the insanity trial of Jeffrey Dahmer. What she heard; What she was waiting to hear; Dahmer's explanations; Mixed emotions about attending; Proof of his sanity; Must define sanity.

Father knows worst

Reports on the findings of Ronald F. Levant concerning emotional ineptitude. He feels that men are victims of 'trained incompetence' when it comes to the warmer spectrum of emotions but that they can be taught. Role playing; Cause of friction; More.

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