Politics

Psychologists call it illusory correlation. The idea is that when we think about others, we tend to overestimate the association between groups and distinctive actions. It's one of the ways in which societal stereotypes are perpetuated and endure . And it's exactly what has many an American Muslim concerned in the wake of this week's tragic shooting spree at the Fort Hood Army base... Read More

Why did Nidal Malik Hasan and other spree shooters murder their victims? One approach would concern the cybernetics of emotion involving recursive loops of shame and anger.

Self-generated loops of shame alone are commonplace among those who blush easily. Read More

Americans should care more when non Americans die. The true tragedy isn't that Americans died; it is that PEOPLE died. Read More

There are many things African Americans bring to the American cultural mix that has emerged in the new century. African Americans themselves often say that one of the greatest contributions is our huge capacity for forgiveness. Read More

Nicky Grist, Executive Director of the AtMP, discusses her efforts to create a more just society for all single people. "Our work," she notes, "focuses on making it not matter whether a couple marries, or an individual remains single, or a family includes more than one or two adults. We think relationships are good for people, caring relationships are good for society, and society should treat caring relationships fairly based on what the people in them do for each other, not what they call each other." Don't miss her description of her most memorable experience as a single-minded change agent. Read More

As Congress and the administration consider a new stimulus, they need to repair the recession's damage to Americans' mental health.

We are seeing what we've known for decades: job losses and economic uncertainty increase the rate of psychiatric symptoms, the rate for suicide and the demand for mental health services.

Calls this year to suicide crisis lines have increased sharply Read More

My last column suggested that WW1 was a product of a national obsession. The French leaders and the public wanted to wipe out the stain to their honor caused by the lost of the Franco-Prussian war in 1871. Historians call this obsession revanchisme (revenge-ism). However, it is possible that their successful revenge against Germany laid the foundation for WWII, a counter revenge. Read More

Who will still be remembered in 100 years? Paris Hilton, Miley Cyrus, the Gosselins, and Megan Fox may dominate the news, but will barely be footnotes in 20 years (if not, I will change species). In this first of two blogs on this topic, I will start the discussion of which living people truly belong to the ages.  Read More

What causes obsessions, small and large? Perhaps unacknowledge emotions, especially humiliation and/or anger, when they spiral. Read More