Take an Empathy Pill and Call Me in the Morning

April 17, 2013—The Oxford Dictionary defines empathy as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another,” although an important dimension seems to be missing in this simple statement. I prefer the definition given by science writer Maia Szalavitz and child psychiatrist Bruce Perry in their 2010 book, Born for Love. “The essence of empathy,” they write, “is the ability to stand in another’s shoes, to feel what it’s like there and to care about making it better if it hurts.”

This is an ability that we can’t exercise if we lack emotional literacy, which social entrepreneur Mary Gordon explains as “the language of the heart.” The founder of an evidence-based and internationally-acclaimed program called “Roots of Empathy,” Gordon points out that children need help putting their emotions into words and learning to understand them and cope with them while also expressing them in appropriate ways. Together with empathy, she says, emotional literacy forms the foundation of morally responsible behavior.
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Our Future Looks Bright Because 
We Reject the Possibility of Negative Events

APS, April 15, 2013—People believe they’ll be happy in the future, even when they imagine the many bad things that could happen, because they discount the possibility that those bad things will actually occur, according to a new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

“I’ve always been fascinated by the changeability of people’s perceptions of happiness,” says psychological scientist Ed O’Brien of the University of Michigan. “On some days our futures seem bright and exciting, but on other days the same exact future event can feel stressful and terrifying.”

With this new research, O’Brien wanted to explore whether fluency—how easy or difficult it feels to think about different events—might play a role in how people think about well-being.
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Differences in Brain Activity in Children at Risk of Schizophrenia Predate Onset of Symptoms

CHAPEL HILL, NC; March 22, 2013—Research from the University of North Carolina has shown that children at risk of developing schizophrenia have brains that function differently than those not at risk.

Brain scans of children who have parents or siblings with the illness reveal a neural circuitry that is hyperactivated or stressed by tasks that peers with no family history of the illness seem to handle with ease.

Because these differences in brain functioning appear before neuropsychiatric symptoms such as trouble focusing, paranoid beliefs, or hallucinations, the scientists believe that the finding could point to early warning signs or “vulnerability markers” for schizophrenia.
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UNC Study Shows How Two Brain Areas Interact in Anxiety and Reward Behaviors

CHAPEL HILL, NC; March 20, 2013—New research from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine for the first time explains exactly how two brain regions interact to promote emotionally motivated behaviors associated with anxiety and reward. 

The findings could lead to new mental health therapies for disorders such as addiction, anxiety, and depression. A report of the research was published online by the journal, Nature, on March 20, 2013. 
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Pig Brain Models Provide Insights into
Human Cognitive Development

URBANA, March 14, 2013 –A mutual curiosity about patterns of growth and development in pig brains has brought two University of Illinois research groups together. Animal scientists Rod Johnson and Ryan Dilger have developed a model of the pig brain that they plan to use to answer important questions about human brain development.
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Do-Gooder or Ne'er-Do-Well? Study Examines How Previous Behavior Affects Current Moral Conduct

APS, March 7, 2013—Does good behavior lead to more good behavior? Or do we try to balance our good and bad deeds? The answer depends on our ethical mindset, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Psychological scientist Gert Cornelissen of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and colleagues found that people who have an “ends justify the means” mindset are more likely to balance their good and bad deeds, while those who believe that what is right and wrong is a matter of principle are more likely to be consistent in their behavior, even if that behavior is bad.
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Researchers Map Emotional Intelligence
in the Brain

CHAMPAIGN, lll., January 22, 2013— A new study of 152 Vietnam veterans with combat-related brain injuries offers the first detailed map of the brain regions that contribute to emotional intelligence – the ability to process emotional information and navigate the social world.

The study found significant overlap between general intelligence and emotional intelligence, both in terms of behavior and in the brain. Higher scores on general intelligence tests corresponded significantly with higher performance on measures of emotional intelligence, and many of the same brain regions were found to be important to both.
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Daniel Kahneman: Unveling the Two-faced Brain

Thinking, Fast and Slow
Daniel Kahneman. 2011. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York. 512 pages.

How many of us are really open to the possibility of shattering our cherished biases and illusions, especially those that support the trust we maintain toward our own mind? Well, don't read Daniel Kahneman's latest book unless that is precisely what you are prepared to do. In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman reveals what he has learned as a result of his Nobel Prize–winning research in judgment and decision making: human beings (and that includes you and me) are not the rational agents economists and decision theorists have traditionally assumed.
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If the Bluestocking Fits

Some words carry so much baggage that we cringe when we hear them. Don’t believe it? Try saying the word "intellectual" without feeling your lip curl up in just a little bit of a sneer. This sensation is especially baffling considering that most of us would support the value of a good education even without thinking about the mountain of research that says exercising the brain is good for both physical and mental health.

Long ago, of course—before we knew that the brain was such an influential organ—“men of letters" (cringing again) were relatively rare and they were highly valued as companions, advisors, and tutors. As the skills of reading and writing were passed on to those who could afford the leisure time to learn them, the lines between the educated and uneducated were usually drawn along class divisions, although in some times and cultures these extended to race and gender too.
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Core Competencies for Kids: Decision-Making Skills

Children around the world commonly use counting rhymes to decide who will be their teammates, which chocolate they will eat, or who among their siblings gets to push the elevator or lift button. But inevitably the decisions children face will become a bit too complicated for counting rhymes. Choosing homework over video games can mean the difference between good grades and bad; choosing one friend over another could mean the difference between being exposed to risky behaviors or mind-expanding, positive experiences. In fact, just about every aspect of our children’s well-being depends on how adept they become at making wise decisions.

By the time we are parents, we understand that the consequences of a single bad choice can reverberate for years, so we want to help our children become competent decision makers. But what skills are required, and how do parents instill them?
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