Why Is It So Hard to Stick to New Year’s Resolutions?
The end of the year brings with it the intimidating prospect of setting new resolutions for 2013. New Year’s resolutions often come up in conversation when I tell people that I study goal pursuit, and...
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The Pains of the American Dream
If the Internet is a hotbed of opinions, Lana Del Rey and Lena Dunham were kindling for arson this past year. It seemed even the briefest browsing of news cycles required a sidestep past a heated...
View ArticleHere's Looking at You, Bird
In the movie Casablanca, actor Humphrey Bogart toasts actress Ingrid Bergman with the famous line “Here’s looking at you, kid.” His choice of a verb—looking—implies an immediately important, and...
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White-Fronted Bee-Eaters
The holidays are winding down. We had a full house, with the usual visits to other full houses. There were parents and step-parents, with brothers and sisters and their significant others; there were...
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FUN AND EASY LAST SECOND TAX REDUCTION TIPS FOR 2012!
LAST MINUTE TAX DEDUCTION TIPS FOR 2012:Apparently sun block (high SPF) and condoms are both recognized by the IRS as valid medical expenses for your flexible spending account! You do not need a note...
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Imagining Yourself Into the Mind of the Sandy Hook Shooter
Imagining Yourself Into the Mind of the Sandy Hook Shooter: It’s Not Just About the Guns The Sandy Hook School shooting was devastating for so many people. Twenty children and six adults, gunned down...
View ArticleWhy Creationists Should Not Fly on Airplanes
The American public is slowly coming around to the idea that global warming is real, but there are a significant number of scientists at this point who believe we may be too late to do anything about...
View ArticleChild From Heaven, Teenager From Hell
We know perfectly well that, as part of growing up, young people will go though a period of disillusionment when the world no longer seems so happy or straightforward or worth living. And we know that,...
View ArticleSaying You’re Black Doesn’t Make it So!
The Hollywood feud between Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino is more than skin deep.In a post last year about white folk who claim to be blacker than black folk, I mentioned that disgraced and now...
View ArticleWhat's the Use of Midwives and Doulas?
Note: First author is Elizabeth LeddenDoulas have been assisting childbirth since tine immemorial. A doula is a support to the mother throughout the perinatal period (see more about doulas here.)A...
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You Are What You Say
Outside of high school English classes, most people don't give much thought to pronouns, prepositions, articles, auxiliary verbs, and other "function words" (e.g., I, to, of, am, the). They seem to be...
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Keeping Grief in Perspective
Although I remain a firm advocate for allowing the flow of grief to do its transformational work in us, I also believe that stepping back from sorrow is essential to healing.For example, as part of my...
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Beating the Winter Blues
On a rainy afternoon in Chiusi, as I ate at my pecorino and pear salad, I realized I felt lonely and bored. Lonely and bored and gloomy.How could this be? I was traveling in Tuscany, where ochre villas...
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Essay by Jennifer Haupt: "Will you be my mother?"
By Jennifer HauptPreface: I wrote this essay after I went to Rwanda nearly six years ago, and it's still one of my favorite—and most personal—pieces I've ever written. It was accepted at a prestigious...
View ArticleI'm Leaving My Family
Dear Dr. G.,I am leaving my kids and divorcing my husband. There I said it. If you already think that I am a terrible person than you can skip this letter. If you read through it which I sure hope you...
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On Human Exceptionalism
So you are driving down the street and from the left side of the road a dog runs out in front of you. You begin to swerve to avoid it when you see that on your right is a young girl and if you continue...
View ArticleMotivating Students by Ending on a High Note
This is a guest post by Bridgid Finn. In 1996, Daniel Kahneman and Don Redelmeier approached doctors who performed colonoscopies—a painful procedure that was routinely administered without anesthetic...
View ArticleFamilies Ache
Work-life balance tops lists of issuesdebated in 2012, catapulted by Anne-Marie Slaughter’s Atlantic article“Why Women Still Can’t Have it All” about the impossibility of juggling an always-on top job...
View ArticleNeuroeconomics?
Economists like facts, facts with numbers. And they like to link those facts with human behavior, specifically choices we make about spending, saving and investing. For many years, they had a favorite...
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“The High Cost of Unemployment"
Unemployment has more than just an economic impact on our lives. M. Harvey Brenner (1973, 1999) in Mental Illness and the Economy estimates that every 1% gain in unemployment over 3 years is...
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