Teaching About Social Meanness In Middle School
Several books ago I wrote one, “Why Good Kids Act Cruel”, to help parents help their early adolescents in middle school deal with mistreatment from social cruelty in any of the five forms it commonly...
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A Sweet Past
A Sweet PastBy Hal E. Hershfield, Ph.D. on November 10, 2012 in The Edge of ChoiceFeeling some degree of connection with the past makes us happier. But what happens when our sense of continuity is...
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Renaming a Disorder Might Help Veterans Seek Aid
Renaming a Disorder Might Help Veterans Seek AidBy Mark Goulston, M.D., F.A.P.A. on November 11, 2012 in Just ListenRe-Traumatization Avoidance (RTA) is closer to the actual experience of many people...
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Is Your Smartphone Stealing Your Life?
Is Your Smartphone Stealing Your Life?By Nancy Colier, LCSW, Rev. on November 11, 2012 in Inviting a Monkey to TeaWhen we record life through technology, we end up with one thing: a lot of technology....
View ArticleWinding Down the Wars and Those Who Fought Them
The wars are winding down, and veterans are returning home with both mental and physical health conditions. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been the most prevalent mental health disorder among...
View ArticleComments on Generals, Risk-Taking, and Affairs
I respectfully disagree with those who suggest that the personality trait of risk-taking is part of the explanation of why David Petraeus had an affair.There are different kinds of risk-taking. The...
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Petraeus Affair Is Not A Public Affair
Melissa Ritter, Ph.D.CIA Director David Petraeus abruptly resigned November 9th citing his “extremely poor judgment” for “engaging in an extramarital affair.” He described his behavior as...
View ArticleHow To Be A Jerk
No matter what your race, creed or political persuasion you can be a jerk. That’s because it’s not what you believe or do, it’s how you decide what you believe or do. It’s not the choices you make but...
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Planning Ahead
“He who exercises no forethought but makes light of his opponents is sure to be captured by them,” said Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese strategist. Several centuries later, Confucius expressed the same...
View ArticleIt’s Your Pride and Vanity, Stupid
When I was a boy, I heard a story about a hot dog stand owner, who would put on a clown costume, then stand on the sidewalk everyday and wave motorists into his business. He was so successful, he...
View ArticlePetraeus's Fall: Illusion of the "Good Man"
As new details emerge about the extramarital affair that led to the resignation of David Petraeus from his post as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, it is interesting to see how people seem...
View ArticlePetraeus, Sex and the Aphrodisiac of Power
Why did David Petraeus risk a dazzling career and even a possible future presidential candidacy for sex with his biographer? Petraeus’s already considerable power expanded when he took over CIA. And...
View ArticleStudent Loans and the Parents' Burden
A Page-One article in yesterday's New York Times by Tamar Lewin reminds us of one way in which Baby Boomers are more like Millennials than people realize — people over 50 carry almost as big a student...
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ONE Tip to Reduce Holiday Stress Now
Some women have already told me they are looking forward to getting ready for the holidays. This blog post is not for them.More women are telling me they are feeling the stress of the weeks ahead: Too...
View ArticleAn Explosive Interpersonal Dynamic
My colleague, Pat Love and I have written that a great many marital disputes are triggered by an unconscious fear-shame dynamic, in which the fear or anxiety of one triggers shame-avoidant behavior...
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Is Retail Therapy? Is Shopping Play?
A recent UCR Today headline proclaimed “Retail Therapy is Real.” This contained just enough truth to magnetize and draw my eyeballs. I’d recently written about how shopping is frontloaded with feelings...
View ArticleWe Never Saw It Coming
Co-authored by Kathleen Vohs, Ph.D.The election of 2012 has gone from being an eagerly anticipated future event to history. The re-election of Barak Obama on November 6, 2012, was watched by people all...
View ArticleAre Chimpanzees Self-Aware?
Awareness is a private affair. For instance, I can’t say for sure whether the other customers in the coffee shop where I’m sitting are conscious in the same way that I am. Perhaps instead they are...
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I Cut Out Every Unnecessary Thing
Happiness interview: Rebekah Sanderlin.I “met” (virtually) Rebekah through a mutual friend, and I was thrilled to read her post yesterday, on the New York Times blogAt War, about how Happier at Home...
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