Story Archives of 'Psychology'

Kids are notorious for getting into trouble. Whether it’s skipping class, picking fights, or slipping away in the family wagon for a midnight joy ride, mischievous behavior is a headache for most parents. What if breaking some of the rules was actually a sign of a child’s future success?

A new study suggests that children who push boundaries on occasion - like hosting parties while the ‘rents are out of town - are actually more likely to become leaders as adults. That finding flies in the face of the belief that those who follow the rules will make it to the top of the corporate heap someday.

With us to talk about why a little mischief might be a good predictor of a child’s future is Maria Rotundo. She’s an associate professor of human resource management and organizational behavior at the University of Toronto and one of the study’s authors.

Leadership Quarterly: Early Life Experiences as Determinantes of Leadership Role Occupancy (PDF)

Miller-McCune: Destined For Greatness, You Little Scamp

(Photo courtesy foamcow via Flickr/CreativeCommons)

For a lot of us, punching an address into a GPS device is a standard routine, right between putting on your seat belt and turning the key. GPS has made paper maps – and remembering directions – feel obsolete.

While that’s a huge convenience, researchers worry that we’re not using the part of our brains that form maps, and that might be permanently affecting our ability to find our way around without the electronic devices.

Joining us with more is Alex Hutchinson. He writes for the Canadian magazine The Walrus, and divides his time between Toronto and Sydney, Australia. That’s where we reached him earlier this week.

The Walrus: Global Impositioning Systems

Alex ponders the effect of GPS technology on human sense of direction:

(Photo by Premshree Pillai via Flickr/Creative Commons)

Among the horror film formulas of gothic monsters, aliens, slashers and the undead is one that now stands out as unfeeling: the insane asylum.

Little wonder, given that these mysterious architectural giants loomed behind iron gates in dozens of American towns. Hollywood brought us inside, painting mental institutions as places of misery and despair. Think of Shock Corridor, The Snake Pit, or the more recent thriller Session 9.

Hollywood trumped up the terror of insane asylums, but they were originally built for healing, as places of safety as well as madness. Among the earliest of the mental hospitals was the New Hampshire Asylum for the Insane in Concord.

An acute psychiatric care facility and a children’s unit still operate there. About half of the old buildings have been converted to state offices or storage units, while the rest sit empty. Word or Mouth producer Avishay Artsy went to unlock the history of this decaying institution.

Popular science loves to extol the differences between male and female brains. Remember the study that made headlines back in the '80s about women being better at holistic thinking? It was based on a single study suggesting that the fibers connecting womens' right and left brains are larger. More recent research suggests that boys’ brains are hard-wired for aggression and girls brains’ for communication.

Neuroscientist Lise Eliot took a long, hard look at these studies and hundreds of others. She found that there are, in fact, very few structural differences between the brains of boys and girls. Instead, she argues, it’s the way that parents and teachers respond to slight behavioral differences that encourage boys and girls to pursue different interests and develop different abilities.

Dr. Lise Eliot joins us now from Chicago where she’s a professor at Rosalind Franklin University. She’s also a mother of three and author of the new book Pink Brain, Blue Brain.

The Washington Post: The Tiny Differences in the Littlest Brains

Newsweek: Pink Brain, Blue Brain: Claims of sex differences fall apart.

Salon: Good luck raising that gender-neutral child

Scientific American: Girl Brain, Boy Brain?

(Photo by EraPhernalia Vintage via Flickr/Creative Commons)