Seperti apa orang karakteristik seorang blogger? Tentu sulit menggeneralisasinya, tapi para peneliti menemukan beberapa kesamaan sifat pada blogger-blogger tertentu. Blogger perempuan yang berusia dewasa muda (kuliahan), misalnya, cenderung mempunyai kepribadian yang neurotik (gampang cemas, gugup, atau insecure); blog pun dijadikan sarana oleh mereka untuk menghindari rasa kesepian dan membangun hubungan sosial dengan orang lain.

Selain itu, salah satu faktor kepribadian yang umum ditemukan dalam seorang blogger (baik pria maupun wanita) adalah keterbukaannya terhadap pengalaman-pengalaman baru (opennes to experience). Ciri ini juga dikatakan berkaitan dengan kreativitas seseorang.

Apakah analisis itu juga sesuai dengan kepribadian anda, para blogger?

clipped from bps-research-digest.blogspot.com Rosanna Guadagno and colleagues asked over three hundred students about their blogging habits and asked them to complete the now industry-standard Big Five Personality Inventory. Around 20 per cent of the students blogged, mostly about their personal experiences. Among female students only, those who scored highly on neuroticism (i.e. anxious, insecure characters) were more likely to blog. This is consistent with work on internet usage that also found an association with neurotic personality types, but only among women. The researchers surmised that nervous women may blog to “assuage loneliness or in an attempt to reach out and form social connections with others.” Among both men and women, those who were more open to experience were also more likely to blog – perhaps unsurprisingly given that blogging is a relatively new phenomenon and given that this personality dimension is associated with creativity.

Sebuah survei skala besar yang melibatkan 2 juta partisipan dari 80 negara menemukan bahwa tingkat depresi paling besar di usia paruh baya, sekitar umur 44; persamaan ini tak memandang jenis kelamin, status perkawinan, atau tingkat ekonomi. Mungkinkah ini akibat dari otak yang juga mulai menua di umur 40?

clipped from www.livescience.com And middle-age misery is not limited to the United States. In a separate study released in January, researchers in the United States and the UK looked at data on 2 million people from 80 nations and found most people are miserable in middle age. The probability of depression peaks around age 44, they found. “Some people suffer more than others but in our data the average effect is large,” said University of Warwick Economist Professor Andrew Oswald, who participated in the global study. “It happens to men and women, to single and married people, to rich and poor, and to those with and without children. Nobody knows why we see this consistency.” In the United States, Oswald and his colleagues found, unhappiness peaks at around age 40 for women and 50 years of age for men. The 33 years of data revealed upticks in happiness when the nation flourished economically. For example, she found that 1995 was a very good year on the happiness scale.

…jadi kalau anda sedang berdiet, hindarilah makan sembari menonton tayangan kriminal di TV atau setelah melayat orang. Hasil ini terungkap dari eksperimen dua peneliti perilaku konsumen di Amerika dan Belanda.

Para partisipan dibagi dalam dua kelompok dan diminta menulis esai. Kelompok yang pertama disuruh membuat esai mengenai perasaan mereka mengenai kematian mereka sendiri, sementara kelompok lainnya menulis mengenai sebuah prosedur medis yang menyakitkan.

Ketika setelahnya kedua kelompok itu diberi makan dan daftar belanjaan, kelompok yang pertama ditemukan makan lebih banyak dan ingin membeli lebih banyak barang dibanding kelompok kedua. Efek ini terutama tampak pada mereka yang punya rasa rendah diri.

Menariknya pula, eksperimen ini juga menemukan bahwa menempatkan cermin di depan para partisipan mengurangi kecenderungan mereka untuk makan berlebihan.

clipped from www.reuters.com Researchers Naomi Mandel from Arizona State University and Dirk Smeesters from Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands conducted several experiments in Europe and the United States where participants wrote essays on their feelings about their own deaths. They then checked off items on a grocery list or ate cookies. Consumers who wrote about their own deaths wanted to buy more and ate more than those who wrote about a painful medical procedure . “When people are reminded of their inevitable mortality, they may start to feel uncomfortable about what they have done with their lives and whether they have made a significant mark on the universe. This is a state called “heightened self-awareness,”" they said. They found people with low self-esteem, in particular, tend to over-consume after death-related thoughts. The study also revealed that placing a mirror in front of the participants reduced the desire to over-consume.

Meski namanya terdengar berat, rasanya banyak orang yang mengalami fobia sosial ini; mereka yang disebut ‘pemalu’, yang sulit bergaul dengan orang baru, lingkungan baru, atau berbicara di depan orang banyak. Tapi jangan kuatir; sejumlah peneliti dari Zurich University sedang mengujicoba sebuah obat yang bisa mengatasi hal itu.

Obat ini, yang diekstrak dari hormon alami tubuh bernama oxytocin, mengurangi aktivitas salah satu bagian otak (amygdala) yang berkaitan dengan rasa takut dan bahaya. Walhasil malu-malu kita berkurang dan rasa percaya kita terhadap orang asing meningkat. Bahkan dalam sebuah eksperimen, rasa percaya para subyek yang diujicoba tidak berkurang meski orang asing itu diketahui telah melakukan sesuatu yang merugikan kita.

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk A nasal spray which increases our trust for strangers is showing promise as a treatment for social phobia, say scientists from Zurich University. They found that people who inhaled the “love hormone” oxytocin continued to trust strangers with their money – even after they were betrayed. Nicknamed the “cuddle chemical”, oxytocin is a naturally produced hormone, which has been shown to play a role in social relations, maternal bonding, and also in sex. “We found that oxytocin has a very specific effect in social situations. It seems to diminish our fears. “Based on our results, we can now conclude that a lack of oxytocin is at least one of the causes for the fear experienced by social phobics. The hormone could also be a candidate for treating patients with autism, he says. “Autistic people also have a fear of social situations and have problems interacting, so it is very likely that oxytocin could help,” he said. Drug trials are under way and early signs are promising say the scientists.

Boleh saja kata orang ‘life begins at 40‘, tapi menurut penelitan terbaru, pada umur 40-lah kinerja otak kita mulai menurun. Ini berkaitan dengan selubung mielin (myelin sheath), salah satu bagian yang penting dari sel saraf otak. Di atas umur 40, tubuh kita mulai kehilangan kemampuan untuk terus-menerus memperbaharui selubung itu, sehinga menyebabkan berbagai gejala kognitif yang dikaitkan dengan penuaan.

clipped from www.dailymail.co.uk According to the latest research, our brain is fastest at 39 and afterwards declines ‘at an accelerating rate.’ The slowdown occurs because of the loss of a fatty sheath which coats the nerve cells, called neurons, during middle age, experts say. The coating acts as insulation, similar to the plastic covering on an electrical cable, and allows for fast bursts of signals around the body and brain. When the sheath deteriorates, signals passing along the neurons in the brain slow down. This means reaction times in the body are slower too. Scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles, say that after 40 the body ‘loses the battle’  to repair the protective sheaths. The finding was made after researchers tested how quickly men aged from 23 to 80 could tap their index fingers in ten seconds. The results from the 72 participants showed that both ‘had lifespan trajectories that were virtually indistinguishable’ – and, significantly, peaked at 39.

…dan dinilai oleh wanita sebagai lebih tua, lebih sehat, dan lebih maskulin dibanding pria yang bersuara tinggi. Sebaliknya, pria menganggap wanita yang bersuara tinggi lebih atraktif, lebih feminin, lebih sehat, dan lebih muda dibanding wanita bersuara rendah.

clipped from www.livescience.com Previous studies conducted by David Feinberg of McMaster University in Canada have shown that women are more attracted to men with deeper voices, judging them to be older, healthier and more masculine than their higher-pitched rivals. Men, on the other hand, go for women with higher pitched voices because they find them more attractive, subordinate, feminine, healthier and younger-sounding. “While we find in this new study that voice pitch is not related to offspring mortality rates,” Feinberg said, “we find that men with low voice pitch have higher reproductive success and more children born to them.” the researchers studied the Hadza tribe of Tanzania, one of the last true hunter-gatherer cultures. Because the Hadza have no modern birth control, the researchers were able to compare birth rates without any outside influencing factors. They found that Hadza men with deeper voices had more children than those with higher voices.

Tentu kita semua sudah tahu idiom di atas, tapi sebuah penelitian di Inggris menunjukkan bahwa kedua hal tersebut secara biologis memang mirip; Hasil pemindaian otak memperlihatkan bahwa ada persamaan bagian otak yang aktif ketika seseorang melihat foto orang yang ia benci atau yang ia cintai.

Satu perbedaannya adalah: Bagian otak yang berkaitan dengan penilaian dan akal sehat tidak begitu aktif dalam mode ‘cinta’, sementara bagian serupa lebih banyak aktif ketika kita membenci.

clipped from www.independent.co.uk Professor Zeki and John Romaya of the Wellcome Laboratory of Neurobiology analysed the activity of the neural circuits in the brain that lit up when the volunteers were viewing photos of the hated person. They found that the hate circuit includes parts of the brain called the putamen and the insula, found in the sub-cortex of the organ. The putamen is already known to be involved in the perception of contempt and disgust and may also be part of the motor system involved in movement and action. “Significantly, the putamen and the insula are also both activated by romantic love. This is not surprising. The putamen could also be involved in the preparation of aggressive acts in a romantic context, as in situations when a rival presents a danger,” One major difference between love and hate appears to be in the fact that large parts of the cerebral cortex – associated with judgement and reasoning – become de-activated during love, whereas only a small area is deactivated in hate.

Teorinya: Stereotipe, prasangka, dan diskriminasi terhadap suatu X akan semakin berkurang jika unsur X itu semakin banyak di masyarakat. Masyarakat yang terdiri dari banyak suku Batak, misalnya, tentu akan memiliki stereotipe negatif dan diskriminasi yang lebih sedikit terhadap suku itu dibanding masyarakat yang suku Bataknya menjadi minoritas kecil.

Tapi sebuah penelitian jangka panjang di Amerika rupanya tidak sesuai dengan teori itu. Meski populasi penderita obesitas di sana semakin banyak dari tahun ke tahun, orang-orang yang kegemukan ini juga masih merasa mengalami diskriminasi, bahkan jumlah mereka yang merasakan hal itu meningkat.

Hipotesis saya, ini karena ada unsur ekonomi di sana. Tak ada orang yang bisa menjual layanan mengganti agama, ras, atau suku bangsa, tapi sudah banyak perusahaan yang menjual layanan pelangsingan badan dengan berbagai cara; tentu merekalah yang diuntungkan jika stereotipe negatif tentang kelebihan berat badan tetap menyebar di masyarakat.

clipped from www.time.com As obesity rates continue to rise in the U.S., so might our acceptance of those who are overweight. But a new study from Yale University suggests the converse trend: rather than feeling tolerance in our society, the overweight and obese say they feel more heavily discriminated against now than they did a decade ago. Led by Tatiana Andreyeva, a postdoctoral research associate at Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, a team of researchers questioned 1,100 subjects, aged 35 to 74, twice over a 10-year span (once between 1995 and 1996, and again between 2004 and 2006). Between the two survey periods, the rate of discrimination due to height or weight increased from 7% of respondents to 12% of respondents. “If a person perceives he is being discriminated against,” Andreyeva says, “it might have significant consequences for his or her health and mental health. Even the perception of discrimination can be important because it is self-perpetuating.”

Sebabnya: Karena orang konservatif lebih lebih bisa melakukan rasionalisasi (pembenaran) ketika melihat segala ketidakadilan ekonomi dan sosial-politik yang terjadi di sekitarnya, sementara orang-orang liberal cenderung jadi frustrasi melihat semua itu.

Begitu juga dengan emansipasi dan pernikahan: Wanita yang pandangannya masih konservatif mengenai gender juga ditemukan lebih bahagia dalam pernikahan dibanding wanita yang egalitarian dan melek emansipasi.

Jadi, ignorance is really a bliss…?

clipped from www.livescience.com Individuals with conservative ideologies are happier than liberal-leaners, and new research pinpoints the reason: Conservatives rationalize social and economic inequalities. Regardless of marital status, income or church attendance, right-wing individuals reported greater life satisfaction and well-being than left-wingers, the new study found. Conservatives also scored highest on measures of rationalization, which gauge a person’s tendency to justify, or explain away, inequalities. If your beliefs don’t justify gaps in status, you could be left frustrated and disheartened, according to the researchers, Jaime Napier and John Jost of New York University. The same rationalizing phenomena could apply to personal situations as well. “Research suggests that highly egalitarian women are less happy in their marriages compared with their more traditional counterparts, apparently because they are more troubled by disparities in domestic labor.”

Bagaimana orangtua menetapkan aturan berpacaran bagi anak-anaknya mungkin berhubungan erat dengan hubungan cinta mereka sendiri. Stephanie Madsern dari McDaniel College, Maryland, menemukan bahwa orangtua yang tidak bahagia, tidak puas, atau tidak nyaman dengan hubungan cinta dengan pasangannya juga menerapkan aturan berpacaran yang cenderung ketat.

Orangtua yang semacam itu juga seringkali mendikte anak-anaknya mengenai bagaimana mereka harus memperlakukan (calon) pacar mereka, perilaku yang tentu saja dianggap si anak sebagai sesuatu yang terlalu invasif dan akhirnya malah membuat si anak tidak nyaman berhubungan dengan pacarnya. Padahal, kata Dr. Madsen, niat orangtua tersebut baik, yaitu agar anak-anak mereka lebih bahagia dalam soal cinta daripada mereka sendiri.

clipped from online.wsj.com Parents who are involved in stable romantic relationships with spouses or partners tend more than other parents to set rules limiting teen dating behavior, such as curfews, minimum ages for dating, limits on places teens can go and explicit rules against sexual activity, says a new study of 169 parents and 102 teens by Stephanie Madsen, an associate professor of psychology at Maryland’s McDaniel College. Parents who are unhappy, dissatisfied or insecure in love, however, go beyond limits and try to dictate or control how their teens treat their dates, the study found. These parents try to influence their kids to value certain things and act in specific ways. The goal may be to launch their teens on a romantic path happier than their own, Dr. Madsen says. But kids often regard this advice as intrusive, and again, it tended to have the opposite effect. The teens affected weren’t particularly content with their dating relationships.

Kalau anda diberi kesempatan untuk menghapus ingatan-ingatan tertentu dari pikiran anda, akankah anda akan menggunakan kesempatan itu?

Meski masih lama sampai manusia bisa melakukan hal semacam itu tanpa merusak otak atau mengganggu ingatan-ingatan kita yang lain, para neurobiolog dari Georgia College of Medicine telah berhasil melakukannya pada sekelompok tikus percobaan.

Dengan disuntikkan protein tertentu yang terkait dengan pembentukan memori di otak, para ilmuwan berhasil menghilangkan ingatan traumatis para tikus itu terhadap kejutan listrik ringan yang mereka alami sebelumnya.

Jadi, kalau nanti sudah tersedia metode yang aman untuk manusia, ingatan seperti apa yang ingin anda hapus?

clipped from www.dailymail.co.uk Scientists say they are able to erase painful memories, paving the way for new treatments of debilitating phobias and stress disorders. Neurobiologists from the Georgia College of Medicine found they could selectively eliminate memories in mice, without damaging their brains in the process. The technique targets a protein that is crucial in the formation of memories. Making the mice over-produce this ‘memory molecule’, while recalling a disturbing event caused the memory to be eliminated. the researchers said wiping should only be used for traumatic memories. ‘While memories are great teachers and obviously crucial for survival and adaptation, selectively removing incapacitating memories, such as traumatic war memories or an unwanted fear, could help many people live better lives,’ leader researcher Dr Joe Tsien said in the journal Neuron. Despite the exciting breakthrough, Dr Tsien warned it could be years before they honed the technique for humans who have far more complicated brains.

Begitulah salah satu kesimpulan dari sebuah survey yang diselenggarakan para peneliti dari University of Cambridge (Inggris) dan University of Southern California (Amerika). Di masa awal dewasa, wanita cenderung lebih bahagia dibanding pria karena di situlah saat-saat mereka rata-rata menikah, berumahtangga, dan berkeluarga. Karena ini pula, di masa muda wanita lebih cepat merasa nyaman dengan keadaan finansialnya dibanding pria.

Di sisi lain, masa tua adalah saat-saat di mana mulai banyak wanita yang menjadi janda atau ‘ditinggalkan’ anaknya yang sudah mandiri atau punya keluarga sendiri. Sementara itu, banyak pria mulai usia 40an baru mulai merasa mantap dan mapan dengan hidupnya, baik secara finansial maupun kehidupan berkeluarga.

Bagaimana dengan anda (atau orangtua anda)?

clipped from www.livescience.com Less able to achieve their life goals, women end up unhappier than men later in life, even though they start out happier, a new survey of Americans suggests. Early in adult life, women are more likely than men to fulfill their family life and financial aspirations, leading to greater overall happiness. Later in life, however, the tables turn and men report coming closer to reaching their goals for consumer goods and family life. Men are more satisfied with their financial situation and family life, and are happier than women in later life, the study shows. Here are some age milestones found in the study 41: Age at which men’s financial satisfaction exceeds women’s financial satisfaction. 48: Age at which men’s overall happiness exceeds women’s overall happiness. 64: Age at which men’s satisfaction with family life exceeds women’s satisfaction. The study also found that both men and women believe they need more to be happy as they get older.

Kamar dan ruang kerja yang ditata sendiri tentunya akan menunjukkan ‘jejak’ kepribadian pemiliknya. John Jost dan rekan-rekannya dari New York University menemukan bahwa kecenderungan politik (liberal atau konservatif) juga bisa diketahui suasana kamar atau ruang kerja pemiliknya.

Dari observasi terhadap 94 ruang kerja di berbagai lokasi dan 76 kamar mahasiswa, mereka menemukan bahwa kamar atau ruang kerja orang yang liberal cenderung lebih unik, nyaman, stylish, bergaya modern, lebih warna-warni, tapi lebih ‘rame’ dan sumpek. Sementara itu, mereka yang haluan politiknya konservatif punya ruangan yang cenderung lebih bersih, terang, rapi dan terorganisasi, tapi tatanan dan dekorasinya standar atau biasa-biasa saja.

Diketahui pula kalau kamar atau ruang kerja orang-orang liberal memiliki jumlah dan variasi CD musik yang lebih besar, dan genre buku-buku yang ada juga lebih beragam.

Bagaimana dengan kamar dan ruang kerja anda?

clipped from www.livescience.com Liberals’ offices were judged as significantly more distinctive, comfortable, stylish, modern, and colorful and as less conventional and ordinary, in comparison with conservatives’ offices, Jost said. “Conservative rooms tended to be cleaner, more brightly lit, better organized, less cluttered, and also more conventional and ordinary in terms of decoration,” Jost said during a panel discussion on ”The Neuroscience of Elections and Human Decision-Making” at NYU, adding: “Conservatives’ rooms were rated by independent raters as better organized and tidier in general.” Specifically, individuals who reported a more conservative ideology also had bedrooms that contained more organizational and cleaning supplies, including calendars, postage stamps, ironing boards and laundry baskets. Liberals’ rooms on the other hand were marked by more clutter, including more CDs, a greater variety of CDs, a greater variety of books and more color in the room in general.

Dari sebuah penelitian di Amerika, 54 persen profil remaja (usia 18, sampel 500 orang) di MySpace secara terbuka mengungkapkan informasi mengenai perilaku berisiko mereka (seksual, obat-obatan terlarang, atau kekerasan). Ketika sebagian subyek dikirimi e-mail yang memperingatkan mereka mengenai publikasi informasi semacam itu, hanya 14 persen yang kemudian menghapus informasi terkait dari profilnya.

Bagaimana ya dengan para ABG pengguna Friendster dan Facebook di Indonesia? Kecuali sejumlah profil yang diduga kuat ‘palsu’, saya kira (setidaknya dari profil teman-teman saya) belum ada seberani itu; paling mentok cuma majang fotonya sedang berciuman saja.

clipped from health.yahoo.com Moreno and her colleagues randomly selected 500 MySpace profiles from people who reported their age as 18. They found that 54 percent of the profiles contained information on risky behaviors, with 24 percent referencing sexual behaviors, 41 percent referring to substance abuse and 14 percent posting violent information. Factors associated with a decreased risk of posting risky behaviors included displaying religious involvement or involvement with sports or hobbies. the researchers randomly selected 190 profiles of people between 18 and 20 who displayed risky behaviors, such as sexual information. Half were sent an e-mail from a physician that pointed out that the physician had noticed risky behavior on their profile and suggested changing the displayed information. The e-mail message also provided information on where to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases. Almost 14 percent of those who got the e-mail deleted references to sexual behavior, compared with 5 percent of the others.

Rasa cemas, stres, serta pengaruh alkohol dan obat-obatan adalah beberapa penyebab umum dari munculnya mimpi buruk ketika kita tidur. Tapi satu hal yang baru saja saya temukan pagi ini sungguh menarik.

Makanan pedas dan penuh rempah-rempah (spicy) yang dimakan di malam hari menjelang tidur ternyata membuat kualitas tidur seseorang memburuk, termasuk kemungkinan lebih sering bermimpi buruk. Para peneliti menduga bahwa makanan semacam itu meningkatkan suhu tubuh, metabolisme, dan aktivitas otak sehingga menyulitkan badan untuk beristirahat.

Makanan lain yang katanya bisa mempengaruhi tidur dan mimpi kita adalah makanan junk-food atawa yang tinggi kandungan lemaknya…

clipped from www.divinecaroline.com 1. Anxiety and Stress 2. Spicy Foods When and what we eat may affect our nighttime rest, if not our tendency toward bad dreams. A small study published in the International Journal of Psychophysiology had a group of healthy men eat spicy meals before bed on some evenings and compared their quality of sleep on nights where they had non-spiced meals. On the spicy nights, the subjects spent more time awake and had poorer quality sleep. The explanation is that spicy food can elevate body temperatures and thus disrupt sleep. This may also be the reason why some people report bad dreams when they eat too close to bedtime. Though few studies have looked at it, eating close to bedtime increases metabolism and brain activity and may prompt bad dreams or nightmares. 3. Fat Content of Food A small study published in 2007 in Psychological Reports found that the dreams of people who ate a high amount of organic food differed from those who ate “junk foods.” 4. Alcohol 5. Drugs 6. Illness

Anda kira yang membuat ngobrol via ponsel sambil mengemudikan kendaraan itu begitu berbahaya adalah karena sebelah tangan anda sibuk menempelkan ponsel di telinga?

Beberapa penelitian menunjukkan bahwa perangkat handsfree tidak membuat percakapan mobile anda lebih aman: mata dan pikiran anda tetap sama tidak awasnya terhadap kondisi lalu lintas serta obyek-obyek di jalan, dan waktu reaksi anda (terutama untuk menginjak rem) tetap lebih lambat. Dua hal ini, kalaupun tidak menyebabkan kecelakaan, turut menyumbang kontribusi pada kemacetan.

Yang paling aman tetaplah meminggirkan dan memberhentikan mobil ke tepi jalan kalau anda harus menjawab telepon penting.

Dan jangan berkilah bahwa anda sudah “terbiasa” atau “terlatih”, karena penyesalan itu biasanya datang terlambat setelah timbul korban.

Oh ya, ngobrol langsung dengan penumpang kendaraan sebenarnya juga mengurangi atensi pikiran si pengemudi, tapi itu tidak seberbahaya bicara lewat telepon karena si penumpang masih bisa ikut memperingatkan pengemudi jika ada sesuatu yang berpotensi membahayakan di depan jalan.

Sumber lain:
More Proof: Driving While Talking is Unsafe
Cell Phone Use Is a Major Cause of Traffic
Driving study deals blow to hands-free phones

clipped from tech.yahoo.com The latest research by Carnegie Mellon University questions hands-free laws, and whether their existence only gives drivers a false sense of safety. To test this theory, neuroscientist Marcel Just studied 29 volunteers who used a driving simulator inside an MRI brain scanner. The volunteers were tasked with driving a car along a virtual winding road, with and without distractions. Researchers found that drivers would hit the guardrail and veer out of the center of the lane more often when they tried to answer true or false questions. Brain scans of the distracted drivers showed brain activity decreased in areas that process visual and spatial information, functions that are crucial for navigation. Once again, this proved that participating in a conversation is all it took to reduce a driver’s focus on the road. As reported in This is London, Just concluded: Drivers need to keep not only their hands on the wheel, they  also have to keep their brains on the road.

Ngeblog bisa membuat anda lebih terhubung dengan komunitas dan mendapat lebih banyak dukungan sosial? Bisa membuat anda lebih puas dengan kualitas pertemanan anda, baik di dunia nyata maupun maya? Mungkin anda sudah tahu itu. Tapi yang menarik adalah temuan lain dari para peneliti di Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, ini.

Sebelum meneliti mengenai efek blogging bagi kehidupan sosial, mereka terlebih dahulu meneliti perbedaan antara mereka yang berminat untuk ngeblog dan mereka yang tidak tertarik sama sekali. Hasilnya, mereka yang menjadi blogger potensial lebih tidak puas dengan hubungan pertemanan mereka dibanding mereka yang tidak tertarik ngeblog. Orang-orang ini juga merasa kurang ‘klop’ dengan lingkungan sosial dan komunitas di sekitar mereka.

Bagaimana dengan anda, apa ketidakpuasan hubungan sosial anda di dunia nyata juga sedikit-banyak mendorong anda untuk ngeblog?

clipped from www.abc.net.au Blogging can help you feel less isolated, more connected to a community and more satisfied with your friendships, both online and face-to-face, new Australian research has found. The research, from Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, found after two months of regular blogging, people felt they had better social support and friendship networks than those who did not blog. “We found potential bloggers were less satisfied with their friendships and they felt less socially integrated, they didn’t feel as much part of a community as the people who weren’t interested in blogging,” Ms Moore said. “They were also more likely to use venting or expressing your emotions as a way of coping. “It was as if they were saying ‘I’m going to do this blogging and it’s going to help me’.” And it seemed to do the trick, as the researchers’ second study shows. Bloggers reported a greater sense of belonging to a group of like-minded people and feeling more confident they could rely on others for help.

1. Jangan mengorbankan waktu tidur. Sebuah penelitian yang dilakukan pada tikus-tikus lab menunjukkan bahwa ketika mereka tidur, bagian otak yang terkait dengan memori ternyata masih aktif dan mengulang (dalam pikiran) hal-hal yang telah dipelajari sewaktu masih bangun tadi. Jadi sebenarnya anda belajar juga selama tidur itu.

2. Kalau bisa, belajarlah sebelum hari gelap. Ini terkait dengan melatonin, yaitu hormon yang berperan dalam pengaturan jam biologis kita. Dalam percobaan yang dilakukan terhadap ikan zebra, ikan-ikan yang dilatih di siang hari (ketika hormon melatonin sedang rendah) bisa mengingat latihannya dengan lebih baik dibanding ikan yang dilatih di malam hari.

clipped from www.livescience.com Scientists are finding new evidence that a good night’s rest plays a crucial role in cementing memories formed during the day. One new study has identified a brain region involved, along with the hippocampus, in creating memories of the day’s activities during sleep. Another study suggests melatonin, a hormone involved in regulating our day-night cycle, or “circadian rhythm,” acts to suppress the formation of new memories as bedtime nears, perhaps in an effort to give memories made earlier in the day a chance to be prepared for long-term storage. So does that mean learning is best done during the day and not at night? Maybe, Roman said, but he points out that the human memory system is much more complex than that of the zebrafish, and while melatonin should inhibit memory formation at night in us, its effects will be buffered by other hormones and other brain components.

Rupanya tak salah kalau orang-orang menyebut kecocokan itu sebagai ‘chemistry’: Sebuah penelitian menyebutkan bahwa dalam bau badan laki-laki terdapat petunjuk mengenai sebuah gen yang terkait dengan faktor imunitas, dan wanita dikatakan cenderung lebih memilih pria yang ‘bau gen’-nya lebih berbeda dengan ‘bau gen’ si wanita sendiri.

Nah, celakanya, pengaruh pil kontrasepsi dapat membuat preferensi bau itu berubah; wanita jadi cenderung lebih memilih pria yang ‘bau gen’-nya serupa dengan dirinya sendiri. Kalau saat itu si wanita sudah punya pasangan? Sebuah penelitan lain menemukan bahwa wanita yang memilih pasangan dengan ‘bau gen’ serupa cenderung kurang puas secara seksual dan lebih besar kemungkinannya untuk selingkuh.

clipped from www.sciam.com Hidden in a man’s smell are clues about his major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes, which play an important role in immune system surveillance. Studies suggest that females prefer the scent of males whose MHC genes differ from their own, a preference that has probably evolved because it helps offspring survive A study published in August in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, however, suggests that women on the pill undergo a shift in preference toward men who share similar MHC genes. The female subjects were more likely to rate these genetically similar men’s scents (via a T-shirt the men had worn for two nights) as pleasant and desirable after they went on the pill as compared with before. Although no one knows why the pill affects attraction, some scientists believe that pregnancy—or in this case, the hormonal changes that mimic pregnancy—draws women toward nurturing relatives. Women who start or stop taking the pill, then, may be in for some relationship problems.

Ketika sedang mengujicoba alat baru untuk mendeteksi benda-benda asing yang masuk ke dalam tubuh karena kecelakaan (misalnya pecahan kaca yang terinjak), sebuah rumah sakit di Ohio, Amerika Serikat, menemukan belasan anak remaja perempuan yang dengan sengaja memasukkan berbagai benda asing ke dalam tubuhnya, mulai dari serpihan kayu, mata pensil, hingga jarum dan staples. Gejala yang diduga sebentuk gangguan psikologis ini disebut sebagai self-embedding disorder, dan diduga merupakan fenomena puncak gunung es karena belum pernah ada penelitian mengenai ini sebelumnya.

clipped from archives.chicagotribune.com Personnel at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, report extracting 52 foreign objects that 10 teenage girls deliberately embedded in their arms, hands, feet, ankles and necks over the last three years, including needles, staples, wood, stone, glass, pencil lead and a crayon. One patient had inserted 11 objects, including an unfolded metal paper clip more than 6 inches long. They call the behavior “self-embedding disorder.” Self-injury is a disturbing trend among teenagers, particularly girls. All the cases in the Ohio study involved girls living in foster homes, group homes or mental health facilities. Many had experienced or witnessed physical or sexual abuse, and most had been diagnosed with depression, anxiety or other mental health problems. But until more information is gathered, it cannot be known if teens living outside the homes of their birth families are at higher risk for this behavior, said Dr. Jarrod M. Leffler, clinical psychologist at Nationwide Children’s.