The Dangers of Emotional Pornography. Editor's note: This week, we're taking a look at some of the "Best of RELEVANTMagazine.com" from 2010. When we put this article up in May, it quickly became one of our most popular and talked-about articles. Cole's examination of our culture's seeming obsession with love stories and idealized romance certainly stirred up a lot of opinions.
Some of you resonated with Cole's idea, and said he was spot-on in his critiques. Others suggested that Cole was blaming the media for our own sin and brokenness. Others suggested that there's nothing wrong with a little romcom. So revisit this article, and chime in to the conversation below. I watched the pilot episode of Glee when it premiered a few months before the show was to begin airing regularly. Flash back to Nashville, May of 2009.
There’s certainly a war against the prevalence of visual pornography in many corners of our society—especially in the Christian culture. I heard an interview on NPR with a female author named Elizabeth Gilbert. Blog Archive How to Stop Illegal Downloads « Nov 03 Three days after publication of my new book , The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, I was able to find electronic copies on a few websites that specialize in illegal content. These were high quality versions of the book, including the images of the cover, the references, and—my favorite part—the copyright notice. I was flattered. On one of the sites, the book had been very popular, downloaded over 20,000 times in just a short period of time before my publisher shut it down. I was also amused. But mainly I was curious, as is my wont. My first insight came with a personal conversion. Recently in a lecture on dishonesty in San Francisco I was explaining, as I always do, that dishonesty is largely founded on our ability to rationalize, and a young guy stood up and argued that downloading music was actually the right thing to do.
My second thought, after realizing my popularity in the “download for free” category, was about the potential for moral deterioration on a broader scale. High school forever: Thanks for the memories, adolescence. Photo by Lissandra Melo/Shutterstock. Which were you? Popular kid, nerd, normal, artist, or loner? Wait, don’t answer that—instead, tell me: What makes that question so seductive? Katy Waldman is a Slate assistant editor. Follow her on Twitter. Follow Not the answer, although the answer may be more important than you realize, according to a long, rich essay by Jennifer Senior in New York Magazine about the enduring grip of our high-school years. Senior pulls together a wealth of studies on adolescence to argue that our experiences in high school mold how we see ourselves, cope with stress, and relate to others forever. While high school is formative, though, it can also be hell. This is a strong claim, but Senior backs it up by discussing how, during this vulnerable time of self-formation and raging emotions, teenagers actually have no idea how to read social cues.
Then, she suggests, we carry our dysfunctional high-school dynamics with us into the real world. How To Solve Problems Like Sherlock Holmes. Are you a Dr. Watson or a Sherlock Holmes? If we could choose between a Watsonian and Holmesian mind, I’m sure most of us would prefer Holmes. He’s brilliant and perceptive: the consummate problem-solver. He’s an intellectual badass, capable of reading a complete stranger’s biography based on the guy’s cuff links. Sadly, most of us are like Dr. An example: At a recent party, I spotted someone across the room to whom I applied a less than charitable label. Sherlock Holmes would never have made a snap judgment like mine, nor would he have overlooked important clues that might have saved me from my prejudice. “Holmes employs mindfulness in all his thinking. Are You a Good Multi-Tasker? Holmes practices mindfulness, which sounds new-agey, but is actually quite practical. She points to a study from the National Academy of Sciences, which showed that people who described themselves as heavy media multi-taskers had much more trouble tuning out distractions than light media multi-taskers.
Brain Parts - Learn More About Your Different Brain Parts. What are the different parts of our brain? The human brain is one of the most complex organs in our body. It is made up of diverse parts or structures that carry-out different functions and work together using thousands of connections that connect the brain to the rest of the body. Below, we will give you a description of the brain's structure, its different parts, and how each part works. The Central Nervous System is made up of of the encehpalon and the spinal cord. The encephalon is the central part of the CNS that is enclosed and protected by the skill. We could say that the human encephalon is divided into three "brains" depending on phylogenetic development: THE HINDBRAIN: It is the oldest and least evolved structure in vertebrates.
The medulla oblongata: It helps control our automatic functions, like breathing, blood pressure, heart rate, digestion, etc. THE MIDBRAIN: It is the structure that joins the posterior and anterior brain, driving motor and sensory impulses. Criminal Flash Mobs. Apparently, That's a Thing Now. A 15th century slave’s monologue, a sheepherder’s confrontation with mysterious violence, and a clear-eyed look at the Mormon Church’s fraught origins. The Expedition to the Baobab TreeBy Wilma Stockenström Every few years, a book comes along that I read only a few pages at a time, lingering over exceptionally well-crafted prose. In 2012, Colm Tóibín’s The Testament of Mary, a searing monologue delivered by Jesus’s mother as you’ve never before encountered her, was one such novel. Now another monologue, also spoken by a woman who has experienced more than most can fathom, has left me entranced and devastated.
Wilma Stockenström’s The Expedition to the Baobab Tree, printed in Afrikaans in 1981 and followed by a virtuosic 1983 English translation by Noble laureate J.M. Coetzee, has received little to no attention in America. “[A]cknowledge me, as a human being, and nothing more than a human being. All the Birds, Singing By Evie Wyld American CrucifixionBy Alex Beam.
Groupthink. Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative viewpoints, by actively suppressing dissenting viewpoints, and by isolating themselves from outside influences. Loyalty to the group requires individuals to avoid raising controversial issues or alternative solutions, and there is loss of individual creativity, uniqueness and independent thinking. The dysfunctional group dynamics of the "ingroup" produces an "illusion of invulnerability" (an inflated certainty that the right decision has been made). Thus the "ingroup" significantly overrates its own abilities in decision-making, and significantly underrates the abilities of its opponents (the "outgroup").
History[edit] He went on to write: Symptoms[edit] Causes[edit] Voluntourism: 'A misguided industry' - People & Power. By Susan Rosas We already know from volumes of research around the world that orphanage care is associated with long-term psychological concerns. Some of the most cited problems related to orphanage care have to do with attachment - a person's inner system for negotiating carer and partner relationships. When we place children in institutions that have many children and few caregivers, we are denying children the opportunity to see what healthy relationships look like. Long-term, hard-wired bonds with individual adults also help children to develop coping skills when distressed. When children are living with caregivers-for-hire, who may not feel affection toward the children or who work on a temporary basis, we are placing the children at both psychological and physical risk. 'Outside of society' Further, orphanages can be incredibly dangerous for the children who live in them.
Within an orphanage, there can be many signs of distress among the children. Crippling fear. The tragic rise of Gap year voluntourism - Comment - Voices. In the last two decades voluntourism has soared. The desire on the part of young people to combine do-gooding with a rattling good time has – in effect– been hijacked and turned to profit by travel agents. Back in 2007, the University of London found that more than 800 organisations were providing volunteering opportunities in 200 countries.
Often, these organisations charge vast sums for experiences that can be acquired far cheaper in the host countries, creaming off thousands from unsuspecting Ruperts and Prunellas. Once these brave souls land they can now stay in hostels exclusively for the use of gap year students. But let’s forget chippiness for a moment. My own village in East India has been visited by gap-year travellers. This voluntourism breeds envy and contempt.
The only positive of this whole charade is that it embarrasses third world governments. I appreciate reading this won’t please gap-year students past and future, nor the parents who often pay for their trips. Why Can Some Kids Handle Pressure While Others Fall Apart? Platon for The New York Times Students at Shaker Heights High School in Shaker Heights, Ohio, on Jan. 25, the day before they took the SAT or SAT math subject test. Clockwise from top left: Elana Ross, Linda Fan, Aryanna Jones, Sasha Rae-Grant, Patrick Reed, Jeremy McMillan. More Photos » So this year, Muthler is opting Noah out of the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment, using a broad religious and ethical exemption. Just knowing he won’t be taking the tests in March has put Noah in a better frame of mind about school.
Muthler understands Noah’s distress; more mysterious is why her son Jacob, who is in eighth grade, isn’t the least bit unnerved by the same tests. Never before has the pressure to perform on high-stakes tests been so intense or meant so much for a child’s academic future. But some children actually do better under competitive, stressful circumstances. Understanding their propensity to become stressed and how to deal with it can help children compete. Blog Archive The Honest Truth about Dishonesty: RSA Animate Version. « Reading Shakespeare and Wordsworth can boost your morale- Authors. London: Reading writers like Shakespeare and Wordsworth can give a 'rocket-boost' to your morale and provide better therapy than self-help books, a study of the human brain has found. Researchers at the University of Liverpool found that serious literature catches the reader's attention and triggers moments of self-reflection.
Using scanners, scientists monitored the brain activity of volunteers as they read pieces of classical English literature both in their original form and in a more dumbed-down, modern translation, the 'Daily Mail' reported. Reading writers like Shakespeare and Wordsworth can provide better therapy than self-help books. The experiments showed that more 'challenging' prose and poetry set off far more electrical activity in the brain than the pedestrian versions.
The academics were able to study the brain activity as readers responded to each word, and noticed how it 'lit up' as they encountered unusual words, surprising phrases or difficult sentence structure. Motivation. Motivation has been shown to have roots in physiological, behavioral, cognitive, and social areas. Motivation may be rooted in a basic impulse to optimize well-being, minimize physical pain and maximize pleasure.
It can also originate from specific physical needs such as eating, sleeping or resting, and sex. Motivation is an inner drive to behave or act in a certain manner. These inner conditions such as wishes, desires and goals, activate to move in a particular direction in behavior. Types of theories and models[edit] Motivational theories[edit] A class of theories about why people do things seeks to reduce the number of factors down to one and explain all behaviour through that one factor. Conscious and unconscious motivations[edit] A number of motivational theories emphasize the distinction between conscious and unconscious motivations. Psychological theories and models[edit] Motivation can be looked at as a cycle where thoughts influence behaviors and behaviors thus drive performance.