Tag Archives: happiness

Should You Let Your Kid Date in Middle/High School? Science Gives a Surprising Answer

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Ryo

Young love can show you things about yourself you’ve never known. It can bring you to happiness and leave you in despair. It can take away the trust you thought you had with others, and make you want to give up on the world. It can teach you what it means to be human, and make you feel more real than ever before. Young love can be all of these things and more, but we never see it coming. The only thing we can really expect is that it will probably change us, for better or worse. Luckily, new research has just looked into some of the effects of dating on academic performance, drug usage, and school drop-out rates, so we know now more than ever before. The results of the research are stunning.

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Posted in Culture, Psychology, Science, Sex and Sexuality, Social Psych | Tagged dating, drugs, education, happiness, love, teenagers | Leave a comment

Is Winning the Lottery Going to Change Your Life? Will it Improve It?

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Ryo

The two questions in the title are qualitatively different. One asks the question we all know the answer to. The other one is a bit less obvious. Everyone sees what life would be like with a huge amount of money – glamour, traveling, room service, shopping sprees, power, influence, etc. We have enough TV shows and movies to show us how great life would be like to have money. However, I don’t know of any movie or TV show that shows what the immediate post-winning life is like for people who are not used to possessing such vast wealth. It was reported a few days ago that Amanda Clayton – who I blogged about here, regarding her unwillingness to cancel food stamps even after winning – has died after overdosing on drugs. She’s just the newest member of the list of people whose lives were ruined after winning the lottery.

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Posted in Culture, Media | Tagged crime, drugs, happiness, money | 1 Comment

Does Drinking Make College/University Students Happier?

Posted on September 21, 2012 by Ryo

A study on the social life of binge drinkers in college was published a month ago, and it’s not a good sign for the health of students. In short, binge drinkers reported being more satisfied with their social lives than their non-binging counterparts. Furthermore, the higher a student’s social status was, the higher the probability of binge drinking was. But before we speculatively run away with these findings, we have to be careful when interpreting them.

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Posted in Culture, Featured, Medicine & Health, Psychology, Science, Social Psych | Tagged alcohol, binge drinking, friendship, happiness | 5 Comments

Are Men Happier When They Share the Housework?

Posted on July 21, 2012 by Ryo

If a recent paper from the UK is correct, it might change the way husbands feel about doing housework. That is, they might be more willing to do it. Traditionally, or perhaps stereotypically, housework has been the role of the woman, whereas the more standard direct financial support (i.e., “bread-winning”) has been the role of the man. I’m not going to get into the veracity of that stereotype, because a more interesting conclusion was drawn from a recent study. Namely, men who share the housework rather than delegate it to their significant other are happier.

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Posted in Culture, Media, Sex and Sexuality, TED | Tagged gender, gender roles, happiness | 2 Comments

Skeptikai Notices (July25) – Japan, psychology, news

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Ryo

Japan

Fukushima Plant ‘Successfully Stabilized,’ 131 Days After Tsunami – Finally, plugging the reactors at the battered Fukushima Power Plant is no longer a goal. I mentioned last month that they had started implementing a promising new water system, which works by decontaminating radioactive water while cooling the reactors. Now, TEPCO may achieve a cold shutdown within six months. This is great news, but it’s still important to remember that cleanup efforts will continue for years. The damage from the tsunami seems like it went on forever. In fact, recent research has found that in places like Miyako, the tsunami reached 40.4 meters.

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Posted in Aggregators/lists/rankings | Tagged China, Fukushima, geisha, happiness, Israel, lying, memory, new zealand, North Korea, Norway, twitter | Leave a comment

Work-Life Balance

Posted on February 12, 2011 by Ryo

Work-life balance signs Nigel Marsh, the Australian author of “Overworked and Underlaid ,” gave a fantastic talk at TEDxSydney about a year ago, which just came out on the TED website this week. If you’ve never heard of TED, it is an internationally renowned conference in which speakers from all walks of life talk about their work, life, or stories. It stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, and its slogan is “Ideas worth spreading.” The popularity of the conference has grown over the last few years – in part, I’m sure, because of the rise of YouTube – and now a new talk comes out virtually every day. I find that the best TED talks include at least some element of storytelling, insight, and humor. Marsh has them all wrapped up in 10 minutes.