Happy Saturday!
This week’s Psychology Around the Net brings you some insight on “the curse of knowledge” and writers (what is it…and do we care?), the feedback loops among financial, physical, and mental health and how to stop the damaging effects, why physical injuries affect our mental health, and more!
Do Writers Care for What Psychology Has to Say About the Curse of Knowledge? Vera Tobin, a professor of cognitive science at Case Western Reserve University, Ohio, explains “the curse of knowledge” as such: “[T]he more information we have about something and the more experience we have with it, the harder it is to step outside that experience to appreciate the full implications of not having that privileged information.” Even though “the curse of knowledge” is mostly considered, well, a curse, Tobin attempts to show us that the “detrimental effects” of this “curse” actually are beneficial for good storytelling in her new book Elements of Surprise: Our Mental Limits and the Satisfactions of Plot.
3 Vicious Cycles: Links Among Financial, Physical, and Mental Health: A feedback loop can be easy to start and hard to stop. The feedback loops among financial, physical, and mental health are no different, but there are ways to break the cycles.
Smart Moves: Intelligence Protects Against Mental Illness: New studies have found 600 new genes for neuroticism and 900 new genes for intelligence. Does this point to a rebalancing of nature vs. nurture equation.
How to Be Less Distracted With Your Kids: Sometimes staying present for your child can be difficult. You love your kid, but not every moment is going to be rainbows and butterflies. Maybe sometimes, the present is boring, frustrating, or confusing — which leads you to drift off with your phone, your mental to-do list, or daydreams. Fortunately, there are several tips that can help you become more present with your child — some that take practice, and some you’ll see results with immediately.
How Physical Injuries Affect Your Mental Health: Aside from the fact that some injuries can make it extremely difficult to complete basic tasks like getting dressed, handling personal hygiene, and even replying to a text — all of which can create waves of anger, frustration, and even depression — physical injuries can cause an even more eye-opening realization: You’re not invincible.
Many Psychiatric Conditions Have the Same Genes in Common: According to a study of nearly 900,000 genomes, there is a common set of genes involved in many mental health conditions including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Finding such patterns can help us working toward learning how and why such mental health problems develop.
Source: psychcenteral
