the psychology and science behind instinct and decision making : jonah lehrer talks to terry gross

mothers, daughters, and envy in psychology today

check out this wonderful three-part pbs series (i found it well worth the time commitment) created by harvard’s happiness expert daniel gilbert. 

series overview (chevy chase, john leguizamo, and robert kennedy jr. are among the contributers)

 great short animation about euphemism, language, and human relationships

Paul Bloom talks to Seed about why we get pleasure from food, sex, art and religion

“…my argument is that pleasure is deep. For instance, sexual desire isn’t just triggered by looking at certain symmetries in the face, or waist-to-hip ratios. It’s triggered by  what you really think of the person.”

Consumerism, sex, and evolution: Seed Magazine reviews Spent by evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller
p.s. interesting aside about the hall of mirrors of evolutionary narcissism  

sleep on it 

“…sleep plays a critical role in flagging and storing important memories, both intellectual and physical, and perhaps in seeing subtle connections that were invisible during waking”

New York Times

jonah lehrer on why  play is so important

vectroave.com/andre meca

what are social science’s biggest challenges?

Jan Moro (Russia) - http://cur.im/fuAw6e

five myths about grief (and there is good news)

ursula andress in matthew barney’s cremaster cycle

procrastination: start somewhere, anywhere…

is anticipating your vacation the best part?

creativity and relationships: two heads are better than one

daydreamers and websurfers encouraged to apply

-jonah lehrer in the wall street journal

75,000 is the magic number

(if you live in nyc, check out paragraph six)

…for all the longstanding centrality of courage to any standard narrative of human greatness, only lately have researchers begun to study it systematically, to try to define what it is and is not, where it comes from, how it manifests itself in the body and brain, who we might share it with among nonhuman animals, and why we love it so much.

Natalie Angier in the New York Times

how much is just enough?

“People make this error, thinking that being alone means being lonely, and not being alone means being with other people…You need to be able to recharge on your own sometimes. Part of being able to connect is being available to other people, and no one can do that without a break.”

monpetithommedecarton:

“People routinely mispredict how much pleasure or displeasure future events will bring.”

“cosmetic neurology”  and the off-label use of ADD drugs in The New Yorker:

“We call it the lifestyle-improvement market.”

what were they thinking? : theory of mind, the red balloon, and god in Slate

Banksy.