A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Over the past 10 years, the research company Gallup have surveyed over a million US students with regard to their strengths, levels of hope and engagement and their wellbeing. Gallup recently published their Student Success Model in which they described some of the wellbeing factors that impact on success. 1. Strengths identification remains as simple as [...]
For many people, race does matter, even if they don’t know it. They feel more empathy when they see white skin pierced than black. This is known as the racial empathy gap. To study it, researchers at the University of Milano-Bicocca showed participants all of whom were white video clips of a needle or an [...]
SPARX — a fantasy role-playing game designed by the University of Auckland to teach young people with depression how to manage and overcome their condition — has found a publisher and distributor, it was announced today. The game first came to the attention of the public when a clinical trial involving it was published in [...]
Why is it so hard for some of us to keep things confidential? Psychologists suggest it has to do with our personality and what we've learned from our parents. The world is full of secrets. They range from the fascinating (who is the Mona Lisa?), to the dangerous (what is North Korea planning?) to the quirky [...]
I believe that being genuinely engaged does wonders for your wellbeing. One of the determinants of engagement is a level of independence, or autonomy. Schools go to great lengths to give students (and teachers) the impression that they encourage independence. However, in the scheme of things, most of what occurs at school is prescribed for [...]
Having been hospitalized for an infection increased one's risk of later developing a mood disorder by 62 percent. As patients acquired more infections, their odds of developing a mood disorder increased proportionally: five hospitalizations for infections increased their risk by almost five times. The association remained significant over 15 years after the infection was treated. [...]
By now you’ve seen the pretty pictures: Color-drenched brain scans capturing Buddhist monks meditating, addicts craving cocaine, and college sophomores choosing Coke over Pepsi. The media—and even some neuroscientists, it seems—love to invoke the neural foundations of human behavior to explain everything from the Bernie Madoff financial fiasco to slavish devotion to our iPhones, the [...]
Are you uncomfortable with ambiguity? It’s a common condition, but a highly problematic one. The compulsion to quell that unease can inspire snap judgments, rigid thinking, and bad decision-making. Fortunately, new research suggests a simple anecdote for this affliction: Read more literary fiction. A trio of University of Toronto scholars, led by psychologist Maja Djikic, report that people [...]
Last week in France, a 52-year-old mother took over-parenting to new heights. Donning Converse boots, skinny jeans and heavy makeup, she posed as her 19-year-old daughter and tried to sit the Baccalaureate English exam in her place. via Painful as it is, we must let our children fail.
I have a male friend who calls his daughter's 'friends' emotional terrorists. When his child was 9-years-old she was the target of cruel smears and gossip for a year. This culminated in the day she came home and said 'Dad, I wish I was a boy like you, 'cos then they'd punch me and move [...]
