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Evolution of moral outrage:
I’ll punish your bad behavior to make me look good Jillian Jordann Ph.D. Candidate in Psychology, Yale University Standing up for what’s right can come with a cost to the individual – but also a benefit. Michael Fleshman, CC BY-NC What makes human morality unique? One important answer is that we care when other people are harmed. While many animals retaliate when directly mistreated, humans also get outraged at transgressions against others. And this outrage drives us to protest injustice, boycott companies, blow whistles and cut ties with unethical friends and colleagues. Scientists refer to these behaviors as third-party punishment, and they have long been a mystery from the perspective of evolution and rational…
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Why grammar mistakes in a short email could make some people judge you
Julie Boland, Robin Queen I’m a cognitive psychologist who studies language comprehension. If I see an ad for a vacation rental that says “Your going to Hollywood!” it really bugs me. But my collaborator, Robin Queen, a sociolinguist, who studies how language use varies across social groups, is not annoyed by those errors at all. We were curious: what makes our reactions so different? We didn’t think the difference was due to our professional specialties. So we did some research to find out what makes some people more sensitive to writing mistakes than others. What prior research tells us Writing errors often appear in text messages, emails, web posts and other types…
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The Power of the Chorale: How One Choir’s Love of Music Keeps Them Going During the Pandemic
By Vanessa Blankenship January 27, 2022 Inside St. Luke in the Fields, a whimsical church in the West Village, a choir group gathered for weekly rehearsal in November. On that Tuesday evening, a crisp late fall breeze blew through the open stained-glass windows. Of the 36 members in attendance, more than half were bundled in their overcoats, and some passed out hand warmer packets to help soothe their shivers. In the rows of pews, everyone practiced social distancing, and everyone was wearing a mask. Despite the discomfort, they relished being there together – no small feat after more than a year of singing while being apart. The Stonewall Chorale, one…
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The Unbearable Lightness of Being at Home
April 30, 2021 I hate meetings. Yes, everyone says that, but I am on the extreme end of the relevant bell curve here: I am introverted to such a degree that some people have confessed that they were unsure I had the ability to speak until months after we met. Therefore, in late March 2020, when stay-at-home orders began to go into force, schools began closing, and my workplace switched to telecommuting, my reaction was more sanguine than most. After all, introverts draw strength from within! Forced social interaction is what tires us most! With fewer meetings scheduled, surely my unpublished novel, a new personal best for pushups, and that…
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Wanted: Moral Courage
Lawrence W. Reed June 20, 2023 When we see acts of moral courage, we should recognize and applaud those who show it. If moral courage means knowing what’s right and both doing it and defending it in spite of fear or obstructions, would you say we’ve improved over the years? My heart wants to say yes but my head tells me no. Every day seems to bring distressing news of moral courage in decline. When we see acts of moral courage, we should recognize and applaud those who show it. We should feel emboldened to practice more of it ourselves. Here’s an example. It happened three years ago but it’s…
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Reviving the ‘Can-Do’ Spirit Is Key to Recovering from the COVID Years
Lawrence W. Reed June 13, 2023 “In life, your attitude determines your altitude,” a wise person once said. I agree. I’ve observed many people with bad attitudes over the years. Without exception, they didn’t amount to much until they fixed their attitude problem. A bad attitude manifests in multiple forms: Arrogance. Dishonesty. A sense of entitlement. A thirst for power. Laziness. Pessimism and negativity. Cheerlessness. Jealousy. Defeatism. Disrespect for other people’s rights, choices, and property. After three years of destructive Covid policies—from lockdowns to mask mandates—some are finding it challenging to get their engines going again. That’s perfectly understandable, given what many have endured including illness and death among friends…
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How “A Bug’s Life” Revealed the Immorality of Socialism
June 11, 2022 Emmanuel Rincón There is no ethical or moral reason why somebody should work tirelessly to support a bunch of bureaucrats, and the 1998 Pixar hit seems to grasp this. Nowadays it is difficult to find a film that represents good ideals and lays bare the practices of totalitarianism; in recent decades, the major film producers have left aside in good proportion the stories of heroes and role models to focus on the victims and their suffering at the hands of the oppressors, without really offering any positive or hopeful message, other than to enhance the culture of victimhood. However, in A Bug’s Life this did not happen, although the…
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The pandemic changed death rituals and left grieving families without a sense of closure
Natasha Mikles The unexpected death of a friend and colleague to COVID-19 in January 2021 led me to start researching how American death rituals were transforming during the pandemic. My friend was Hindu, and while watching his funeral on Zoom, I witnessed the significant transformations that had to be made to the traditional rituals to accommodate COVID-19 safety guidelines. In the spring and summer of 2021, I conducted over 70 hours of oral history interviews with people involved in the medical and funerary professions, as well as grieving families and those who worked closely with them, including grief counselors, hospice workers and even spirit mediums. As a historian of religion interested in…
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Covid supercentenarian
Lucile Randon DC (French: [ly.sil ʁɑ̃.dɔ̃]; 11 February 1904 – 17 January 2023), also known as Sister André (French: Sœur André), was a French supercentenarian. Living to the age of 118 years and 340 days, she had been the world’s oldest verified living person since April 19, 2022, following the death of Kane Tanaka.[1][2] ] Randon was blind and used a wheelchair from the early 2010s.[6] In January 2021, she tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in an outbreak at her retirement home. She was asymptomatic and tested negative days before her 117th birthday, making her the oldest known survivor of the COVID-19 pandemic.[1][3][10]
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Your Brain on Red Alert
In February of 2020, as a mysterious zoonotic virus winged its way across the planet, I resolved to do whatever I could to stay on top of pandemic reports. I created a coronavirus browser folder, filled it with trusted news links, and checked it multiple times a day. But as the pandemic’s finish line receded into the future, my optimism flagged and my resolve to stay informed dwindled. Soon I felt like a panic-saturated sponge, incapable of absorbing any more bad news. I descended into the numbness so many of us have experienced, but the alerts kept coming. When alarm signals bombard us from every direction, our concentration and judgment…
