Figures show statistics, computing, physics and maths have risen in popularity and languages bouncing back
Fewer pupils in England are studying drama, media and performing arts at GCSE and A-level, while the popularity of statistics, computing, physics and maths has gone up.
Provisional figures for exam entries in England this summer, published by the exams regulator Ofqual on Thursday, also reveal a growing enthusiasm for modern foreign languages, which had been in long-term decline.
It has long been thought that psychological tactics can persuade consumers to adopt much healthier habits. But it turns out there is a hitch …
Name: Behavioural nudges.
Age: Nudge theory was popularised by the 2008 book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness, by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. But the term nudge had been used in cybernetics, the science of communications and automatic control systems, in the 1990s.
We fear others’ judgment, but the evidence tells us that the things which cause us shame can make us more likable
We all carry some secrets that we would rather not share with the people around us. In much the same way that we may only invite visitors into the “good rooms” of our house while the rest is an absolute tip, we often hide the chaos of our personal lives behind a polished facade. This may be a serious mistake, since it’s precisely those vulnerabilities that can offer rich opportunities to bond with the people around us.
This is sometimes known as the “beautiful mess effect”, and one striking example of it playing out in the public sphere is in the life of Diana, Princess of Wales. At the time, even her harshest critics would have admitted that she had an incredible capacity to connect with people. And the widespread admiration for her seems to have arisen because of her vulnerabilities, rather than in spite of them. In her controversial BBC Panorama interview in 1995, for example, she discussed her husband’s infidelities, but also her struggles with mental health and her love affairs. Many of Diana’s detractors believed that she had provided the material for her own character assassination, but Diana’s popularity soared in the days after the interview, with the Daily Mirror reporting that an astonishing 92% of the public supported her appearance on the programme.
Finding tunes with a tempo and rhythm to match your heart rate can help you keep the pace when you exercise – and make it more enjoyable
Anyone who’s ever hefted a dumbbell or laced up a running shoe understands that music, on some level, makes the process more enjoyable. That’s why tunes and training are a hit combination: there are playlists, classes and even entire fledgling genres promising to help you push for the burn.
Broadly speaking, there are two ways music can help you mid-workout. First, by helping you dissociate from any discomfort you’re experiencing and, second, by improving the quality of the training itself. The former seems to work especially well for long, slow efforts.
The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts
Why are bodies of water so calming? In my experience, this is true whether they are placid or tempestuous. Mary Vogel, Vancouver
Full Abstract:
"Trigger warnings, content warnings, or content notes are alerts about upcoming content that may contain themes related to past negative experiences. Advocates claim that warnings help people to emotionally prepare for or completely avoid distressing material. Critics argue that warnings both contribute to a culture of avoidance at odds with evidence-based treatment practices and instill fear about upcoming content. A body of psychological research has recently begun to empirically investigate these claims. We present the results of a meta-analysis of all empirical studies on the effects of these warnings. Overall, we found that warnings had no effect on affective responses to negative material or on educational outcomes. However, warnings reliably increased anticipatory affect. Findings on avoidance were mixed, suggesting either that warnings have no effect on engagement with material or that they increased engagement with negative material under specific circumstances. Limitations and implications for policy and therapeutic practice are discussed."
Citation:
Bridgland, V. M. E., Jones, P. J., & Bellet, B. W. (2023). A Meta-Analysis of the Efficacy of Trigger Warnings, Content Warnings, and Content Notes. Clinical Psychological Science, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/21677026231186625
Note that the Association for Psychological Science has a more public-facing writeup about the research, if you'd prefer a non-researcher-oriented read. If, instead, you'd like to read more research, you might take a look at the articles citing/responding to the meta-analysis.
Influencers and politicians use snappy cliches to get you on side – but you can fight fire with fire
Since the moment I learned about the concept of the “thought-terminating cliche” I’ve been seeing them everywhere I look: in televised political debates, in flouncily stencilled motivational posters, in the hashtag wisdom that clogs my social media feeds. Coined in 1961 by psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, the phrase describes a catchy platitude aimed at shutting down or bypassing independent thinking and questioning. I first heard about the tactic while researching a book about the language of cult leaders, but these sayings also pervade our everyday conversations: expressions such as “It is what it is”, “Boys will be boys”, “Everything happens for a reason” and “Don’t overthink it” are familiar examples.
From populist politicians to holistic wellness influencers, anyone interested in power is able to weaponise thought-terminating cliches to dismiss followers’ dissent or rationalise flawed arguments. In his book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, Lifton wrote that these semantic stop signs compress “the most far-reaching and complex of human problems … into brief, highly selective, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. They become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.”
After drinking and making a fool of herself for 35 years, the writer realised that’s not how she wanted to be remembered
How do you know someone has stopped drinking? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you. The old vegan joke comes into my mind a lot as yet again I start talking about how my life has transformed since I gave up booze. But people mostly humour me, sometimes even seek me out. It’s amazing the number of conversations I’ve had at parties where friends with whom I used to get hammered now sidle up to me between their fourth and fifth drink and mutter about how they’re starting to wonder about whether they should quit, too.
As long as I don’t use the A-word. Alcoholic. That doesn’t make anyone comfortable. You weren’t that bad. And if your definition encompasses literal gutters, I wasn’t (though I’ve fallen off a fair few pavements in my time). Leonard Cohen’s words from You Want It Darker could have been written for me: “I struggle with some demons, they were middle-class and tame.” Making a fool of myself on one bottle too many of barolo at a dinner party is hardly alcoholism, after all.
The scientist leading a study into how the urban environment affects our wellbeing on the surprising and lasting psychological benefits of even just a small dose of nature
Andrea Mechelli, a clinical psychologist and neuroscientist, is professor of early intervention in mental health at King’s College London. He is the project lead on Urban Mind, a research study co-developed with arts foundation Nomad Projects and landscape architects J&L Gibbons which since 2018 has been looking at how aspects of the urban environment affect mental wellbeing globally. Its recent findings suggest that nature – and certain features such as natural diversity and birdsong – can boost our mental health.
We know being outdoors – walking, jogging or playing sports – is good for our physical health, but what role does nature play in our mental health? Several studies show that people who live near parks, canals, rivers – any green space – are less likely to struggle with mental health issues. And this is the case even after we account for individual differences in socioeconomics. The risk of developing depression is about 20% lower in people who live near or spend a significant amount of time near green spaces. But what we don’t know is which specific aspects of the natural environment are beneficial.
Four days after my child was born, I began experiencing postpartum psychosis. What I learned changed my life
The first time I start hallucinating I am home, alone, with my baby. Drunk from lack of sleep I watch as his features morph in and out of shape. I take photo after photo, trying to capture what I see.
A few days later, while I am pushing the pram outside, it happens again. I pull the hood down to hide my baby from prying eyes. I no longer know who I can trust.
I am dead, I am dead. And because I am dead it won’t matter if I take my own life. No one can miss what was never real.
Unraveling how consciousness arises out of particular configurations of organic matter is a quest that has absorbed scientists and philosophers for ages. Now, with AI systems behaving in strikingly conscious-looking ways, it is more important than ever to get a handle on who and what is capable of experiencing life on a conscious level. As Christof Koch writes in Then I Am Myself the World, "That you are intimately acquainted with the way life feels is a brute fact about the world that cries out for an explanation." His explanation—bounded by the limits of current research and framed through Koch’s preferred theory of consciousness—is what he eloquently attempts to deliver.
Koch, a physicist, neuroscientist, and former president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, has spent his career hunting for the seat of consciousness, scouring the brain for physical footprints of subjective experience. It turns out that the posterior hot zone, a region in the back of the neocortex, is intricately connected to self-awareness and experiences of sound, sight, and touch. Dense networks of neocortical neurons in this area connect in a looped configuration; output signals feedback into input neurons, allowing the posterior hot zone to influence its own behavior. And herein, Koch claims, lies the key to consciousness.
In the hot zone
According to integrated information theory (IIT)—which Koch strongly favors over a multitude of contending theories of consciousness—the Rosetta Stone of subjective experience is the ability of a system to influence itself: to use its past state to affect its present state and its present state to influence its future state.
Last week the founder of the dating app Bumble forecasted a near future dating landscape where AI ‘dating concierges’ filter out prospective partners for us. But does AI, or even science, really understand what makes two people compatible? Madeleine Finlay speaks to Amie Gordon, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, to find out what we know about why two people go the distance, and why she and her colleague associate professor of sociology Elizabeth Bruch, are designing their own dating app to learn more.
Login
