Posts

Ditch the small talk: When being direct with your mentee can be a lifeline in a crisis

Crisis hotlines have been around for years, but until recently there’s been very little data on which counseling strategies seemed most effective at helping people cope. The recent emergence of text-based crisis help lines is changing that. Designed for people who prefer texting to talking, these services generate large datasets of anonymous counseling sessions—raw material […]

Not buying what they’re selling: Making friends reduces influence of negative media

By Lesley Henton, Futurity People whose only knowledge of Muslims comes from the media are very likely to have negative emotions and stereotypical beliefs about them, new research shows. In the Journal of Communication, Srividya Ramasubramanian, associate dean of liberal arts and professor of communication at Texas A&M University, used multiple studies, surveying non-Muslims on […]

Coping with stress? Start with a smile: How smiling promotes stress recovery

From the Association for Psychological Science   Just grin and bear it! At some point, we have all probably heard or thought something like this when facing a tough situation. But is there any truth to this piece of advice? Feeling good usually makes us smile, but does it work the other way around? Can […]

Texting too Much? Implications of Text Messaging for Adolescent Well-Being

By Tara Kuther, Society for Research on Adolescence Adolescents rely on text messaging to communicate with their friends more than any other form of contact, including face-to-face interaction. Most research to date on text messaging has relied on self-report surveys.  Underwood and colleagues conducted a naturalistic study of text messaging in 172 14-year old adolescents […]

Brief online “pep talks” can boost student learning

Brief online interventions that instill a “growth mindset” and a sense of purpose can improve learning, especially for struggling students. These interventions could potentially reach vast numbers of students at low cost. “Two interventions, each lasting about 45 minutes and delivered online, raised achievement in a large and diverse group of underperforming students over an […]

Teens Whose Parents Exert More Psychological Control Have Trouble With Closeness, Independence in Relationships

by Hannah Klein, SRCD For teenagers, learning to establish a healthy degree of autonomy and closeness in relationships (rather than easily giving in to peer pressure) is an important task. A new longitudinal study has found one reason adolescents struggle with balancing autonomy and closeness in relationships: parents’ psychological control. Teens whose parents exerted more psychological control over […]

New guidebook offers useful strategies for advancing self-regulation

Executive function and self-regulation (EF/SR) skills provide critical supports for learning and development, and while we aren’t born with these skills, we are born with the potential to develop them through interactions and practice.  This 16-page guide describes a variety of activities and games that represent age-appropriate ways for adults to support and strengthen various […]