“Could a writer have an indirect influence of this kind, getting readers to think about themselves anew? We believe so. Indeed, in several studies over the past few years, we have found evidence that such influence is characteristic of literary art.”
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/opinion/sunday/how-writing-transforms-us.html
“Behavioral economist Keith Chen says languages that don’t have a future tense strongly correlate with higher savings.”
http://www.npr.org/2014/04/04/295356139/could-your-language-affect-your-ability-to-save-money
“Asked to elaborate, he says that if indigenous people want to give up their ancestral language to join the modern world, why should we consider it a tragedy? Languages have always died as time has passed. What’s so special about a language?”
“How close can words get you to the truth and feel and force of life? That’s the question poking at our ribs this hour, as we wonder how it is that the right words can have the wrong meanings, and why sometimes the best translations lead us to an understanding that’s way deeper than language. This episode, 8 stories that play out in the middle space between one reality and another — where poetry, insult comedy, 911 calls, and even our own bodies work to close the gap.”
I adapted this episode into a shorter audio file you can listen to here:
Why smart people sometimes do dumb things
“No doubt you know several folks with perfectly respectable IQs who repeatedly make poor decisions. The behavior of such people tells us that we are missing something important by treating intelligence as if it encompassed all cognitive abilities. I coined the term ‘dysrationalia’ (analogous to ‘dyslexia’), meaning the inability to think and behave rationally despite having adequate intelligence, to draw attention to a large domain of cognitive life that intelligence tests fail to assess. Although most people recognize that IQ tests do not measure every important mental faculty, we behave as if they do. We have an implicit assumption that intelligence and rationality go together—or else why would we be so surprised when smart people do foolish things?”
“Religious belief drops when analytical thinking rises.
“Why are some people more religious than others? Answers to this question often focus on the role of culture or upbringing. While these influences are important, new research suggests that whether we believe may also have to do with how much we rely on intuition versus analytical thinking.”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-critical-thinkers-lose-faith-god/
“Most white Americans demonstrate bias against blacks, even if they’re not aware of or able to control it. It’s a surprisingly little-discussed factor in the anguishing debates over race and law enforcement that followed the shootings of unarmed black men by white police officers. Such implicit biases — which, if they were to influence split-second law enforcement decisions, could have life or death consequences — are measured by psychological tests, most prominently the computerized Implicit Association Test, which has been taken by over two million people online at the website Project Implicit.”
“You think of yourself as a person who strives to be unprejudiced, but you can’t control these split-second reactions. As the milliseconds are being tallied up, you know the tale they’ll tell: When negative words and black faces are paired together, you’re a better, faster categorizer. Which suggests that racially biased messages from the culture around you have shaped the very wiring of your brain.”
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/11/science-of-racism-prejudice
“The concept is based on the idea that we all have a personal narrative that shapes our view of the world and ourselves. But sometimes our inner voice doesn’t get it completely right. Some researchers believe that by writing and then editing our own stories, we can change our perceptions of ourselves and identify obstacles that stand in the way of better health.”
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/19/writing-your-way-to-happiness/
What would life be like if you were missing emotions that others have? What would be the consequences of life without fear? Would it be a blessing or a curse?
Article on a woman who doesn’t feel fear.
https://www.yahoo.com/health/meet-the-woman-who-feels-no-fear-108746157003.html
Part of a podcast, Invisibilia, about the same woman
TOK Topics 