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Ideal Affect: How What You Want to Feel Can Impact Your Choices
For the most part, people want to feel good things, such as feeling excited, enthusiastic, calm, or relaxed. But according to affect valuation theory, the type of good feelings people strive for—or their ideal affect—impacts the kind of behavior they engage in.
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Jumping for joy on four paws: Neurological evidence of emotion in dogs
Bri’s dog Rainey Running with Rainey is simultaneously the best thing and the worst thing. As a joint new year’s resolution to get in better shape, we’ve been trying to run together several times a week. Yesterday, as we started out in the warm afternoon sunshine, my iPod jamming away to White Panda’s mashup of…
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New research: From Screen to Green: What happens to kids social skills when they go cold turkey on all media?
The fact is we all stare at screens more than we would like and many of us rely on these tools to communicate with others, even during times when we should be spending quality time with our families and friends. So does all this time staring at screens, which may take time away from looking…
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Awe: Why It’s Important, and How to Feel It
Jason Silva – Shots of Awe Have you ever gazed up at the starry sky and felt amazed by its vastness? Or have you looked over the abyss of the Grand Canyon and found your breath catch in your throat? If so, you probably felt awe, a “feeling of wonder and astonishment experienced in the presence of…
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Psychology Classics: James Pennebaker’s Expressive Writing Paradigm
ames Pennebaker’s writing paradigm was an important contribution to the young field of health psychology at the time and continues to be used today to explore connections between disclosure and physical and mental health and to generate hypotheses about other psychological phenomena.
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Do Animals Suffer Like People?
Imagine walking into a room filled with people crying. They are all wearing black; makeup running; tissues clutched hard in their hands. Instinctively, you too are overcome by the grief that is flowing through the room, knowing the cause of their misery and empathizing with their suffering.
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The Psychology of Radiation Panic
A recent McClatchy-Marist poll found that nearly 6 in 10 Americans think a nuclear disaster similar to what happened in March of this year in Japan could happen here. Why do so many people suddenly think that nuclear disaster is likely? Recent research in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General might shed some light on the…
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Emotional Control: Strategies we use for regulating our emotions
Emotions are a central component of the human experience. They facilitate social interactions, allow us to both appreciate and create powerful works in arts and literature, and guide us in achieving personal goals. These are only a few of the myriad ways that demonstrate the important role emotions play in our lives. In a letter…