The New Psychology of Time

in Psychology | November 30th, 2008

The Time Para­dox, a new book by Philip Zim­bar­do & John Boyd, puts forth an intrigu­ing argu­ment — our atti­tudes toward time, often uncon­scious ones, can strong­ly shape our per­son­al­i­ties and the kind of lives we lead. They can con­tribute to our hap­pi­ness and suc­cess, or our unhap­pi­ness and depres­sion.

The argu­ment goes some­thing like this: Not entire­ly know­ing­ly, we all focus on the past, present or future. And, in mod­er­a­tion, each focus can have some net good. Future-ori­ent­ed peo­ple tend to be ambi­tious and suc­cess­ful; present-ori­ent­ed peo­ple tend to have friends and fun; and past-ori­ent­ed peo­ple often have close fam­i­ly rela­tion­ships. But when we asso­ciate too strong­ly with one of these “time zones” (again often with­out real­iz­ing it), we run into prob­lems. When we’re too strong­ly focused on the future, we sac­ri­fice friends, fam­i­ly and fun. When we’re too present-ori­ent­ed, we leave our­selves open to hedo­nism and addic­tions. And when we cling to the past, we sim­ply get stuck in the past, and depres­sion usu­al­ly fol­lows. The upshot then is that we need to find a “tem­po­ral bal­ance,” and this applies not just to indi­vid­u­als, but to nations, reli­gious groups and social class­es as well. Accord­ing to Zim­bar­do and Boyd, larg­er social groups can tend toward dis­tort­ed sens­es of time. The Amer­i­can finan­cial cri­sis boils down to an extreme focus on the present, or a lack of con­cern for future con­se­quences. That’s essen­tial­ly what the big cred­it give­away was all about.

You may rec­og­nize Philip Zim­bar­do’s name. He’s a wide­ly rec­og­nized psy­chol­o­gy pro­fes­sor who was behind the famous Stan­ford Prison Exper­i­ment (1971). He has served as the pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­can Psy­cho­log­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion. And, last year, he pub­lished The Lucifer Effect, a New York Times best­seller.

To delve a bit more deeply into The Time Para­dox, you should watch (below) the engross­ing pre­sen­ta­tion that Zim­bar­do gave at Google’s HQ last month. Or you can lis­ten to this radio inter­view that aired recent­ly in New York City (iTunes Feed MP3). Last­ly, you can take a sur­vey on The Time Para­dox web site and learn more about your tem­po­ral bal­ance.

Sub­scribe to our feed

We Didn’t Start the Fire, or The World From 1949 to 1989

in History, Video - Politics/Society | November 29th, 2008

If you could sync up a pho­to with every name and event men­tioned in Bil­ly Joel’s “We Did­n’t Start the Fire,” you’d have a mon­tage that offers a pret­ty good glimpse into the sec­ond half of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry. That’s what a Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go grad stu­dent fig­ured out when he put this viral video togeth­er. We’ve added it to our YouTube playlist. Thanks Bob for the tip!

Sub­scribe to our feed

Books Authors Want (and Plan to Give) for the Holidays

in Books | November 28th, 2008

Pen­guin asked its sta­ble of writ­ers what books they plan to give friends dur­ing the hol­i­days, and what books they’d hope to receive. Here’s a quick sam­pling. And if you want to list your own gift ideas, feel free to add them to the com­ments below.

Khaled Hos­sei­ni, author of The Kite Run­ner and A Thou­sand Splen­did Suns, is giv­ing The Brief Won­drous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz. And so, too, is Michael Pol­lan (The Omni­vore’s Dilem­ma). It won the Pulitzer after all.

Michael Lewis (Liar’s Pok­er) not so secret­ly hopes to wind up with a copy of Mal­colm Glad­well’s new book Out­liers: The Sto­ry of Suc­cess. He’s not the only one, to be sure.

Friends of Eliz­a­beth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) will be get­ting The Prin­ci­ples of Uncer­tain­ty by Maira Kalman. And, in turn, they may be giv­ing her biogra­phies of great adven­tur­ers like Cap­tain Cook and Ernest Shack­le­ton. (Per­son­al­ly, I’d rec­om­mend Endurance: Shack­le­ton’s Incred­i­ble Voy­age. Great read.)

Last­ly, Nick Hor­by (High Fideli­ty) is offer­ing up Mark Har­ris’ Pic­tures at a Rev­o­lu­tion.

For more book ideas, vis­it the full list and also see our read­er-cre­at­ed list: Life-Chang­ing Books.

Sub­scribe to our feed

The Birth Of A Tornado

in Science, Video - Science | November 26th, 2008

It’s almost eerie to watch how a tor­na­do takes shape. As you’ll see below, it starts with a wisp of noth­ing much and, with­in min­utes, morphs into a ter­ri­ble force. For more pre­cise details on how tor­na­does form, you can check out this dynam­ic pre­sen­ta­tion over at USA Today.

Sub­scribe to our feed

Top 10 Amazing Biology Videos

in Biology, Science | November 26th, 2008

This week, Wired has post­ed a piece — Top 10 Amaz­ing Biol­o­gy Videos — that has start­ed swirling around the web. Here you’ll find some seri­ous videos (for exam­ple, a clip below show­ing high speed gene sequenc­ing in action) along­side some lighter videos that fea­ture, um, shrimp run­ning on a tread­mill. This piece is the log­i­cal fol­low up to Wired’s ear­li­er post: 10 Amaz­ing Physics Videos.

Sub­scribe to our feed

Bob Dylan & Johnny Cash Together in 1969: Free MP3s

in Music | November 24th, 2008

Two Amer­i­can icons got togeth­er in Nashville in 1969 and record­ed at least 22 tracks togeth­er, includ­ing some well known clas­sics: Ring of Fire, I Walk The Line, Girl From the North Coun­try, and You Are My Sun­shine. You can lis­ten in on the his­toric col­lab­o­ra­tion for free here.

via Boing­Bo­ing

Sub­scribe to our feed

Peter Schiff on the Economy and What’s Coming Next

in Current Affairs | November 24th, 2008

Last week, we fea­tured a rather pre­scient video clip high­light­ing Peter Schiff and his warn­ings in 2006-07 that that our econ­o­my is in deep trou­ble. Since then, many have won­dered where Schiff sees things going next. So NPR’s Plan­et Mon­ey (iTunes — Rss Feed — Stream) caught up with him on Fri­day and asked him just that: The upshot is nowhere good. We’ve got some deep, under­ly­ing prob­lems — prob­lems that go well beyond asset bub­bles. We’re head­ed for anoth­er Depres­sion. And it’s in part because all of the gov­ern­ment inter­ven­tion is hurt­ing, not help­ing, things. There’s noth­ing very hope­ful here. But, if Schiff is right again, it could pay to lis­ten and get his take on what the future could look like.

Sub­scribe to our feed

The White Album Turns 40

in Music | November 23rd, 2008

The Bea­t­les’ White Album turned 40 last week. And that put the clas­sic album back in the spot­light, lead­ing crit­ics to revis­it the band’s most exper­i­men­tal and con­tro­ver­sial work. Was it their mas­ter­piece or biggest mess? (Feel free to post your thoughts in the com­ments below.) For one look back, you can lis­ten to this pod­cast from WNY­C’s Sound Check (iTunes — Feed — MP3). And, for good mea­sure, we’re throw­ing in some video clips from the album’s stu­dio ses­sions.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Bea­t­les: Pod­casts from Yes­ter­day
What New York­ers Heard on the Radio the Night John Lennon was Shot
The Grey Video: Mix­ing The Bea­t­les with Jay‑Z

Sub­scribe to our feed

Malcolm Gladwell and The Secret of Success

in Books | November 20th, 2008

Mal­colm Glad­well, the author of The Tip­ping Point and Blink, has a new book out. And it’s almost guar­an­teed to be anoth­er best­seller. Out­liers: The Sto­ry of Suc­cess takes on an idea at the cen­ter of Amer­i­can mythol­o­gy, the con­cept of the “self-made man.” For Glad­well, suc­cess sto­ries aren’t large­ly the prod­uct of smarts and hard work, as we’re repeat­ed­ly told. More often, they’re “the prod­uct of hid­den advan­tages and extra­or­di­nary oppor­tu­ni­ties and cul­tur­al lega­cies that allow [suc­cess­ful indi­vid­u­als] to learn and work hard.” And, as you’ll hear in this inter­view (iTunes — Feed — Web Site), good tim­ing (includ­ing the month and decade of your birth), cir­cum­stance, and luck also play a fair­ly impor­tant role. You can buy the new book in print here, or down­load the audio book from Audi­ble for as lit­tle as $7.49.

As a quick aside, The Leonard Lopate show (where we found this inter­view) appears in our Ideas & Cul­ture Pod­cast col­lec­tion, which you think­ing types might enjoy.

Sub­scribe to our feed

Hitler’s Real Estate Downfall

in Comedy, Current Affairs | November 20th, 2008

What hap­pens when you take the 2004, Acad­e­my award-nom­i­nat­ed Ger­man film Der Unter­gang (The Down­fall) and turn it into a spoof? Here, the “down­fall” is all about the decline of the hous­ing mar­ket, and how Hitler becomes just anoth­er man with a home under water. There are some clas­sic lines here, par­tic­u­lar­ly if you looked to buy a home in recent years. Thanks Bob for the tip.

Sub­scribe to our feed