“Prospective memory”—the ability to remember to act on our intentions—declines with age. But older people can perform on a par with younger ones when they use their extended minds: that is, when they rely on the external environment to provide cues and reminders. This process is known as “cognitive offloading.” It involves moving the intentions
Learning how to use our extended minds Continue Reading >
At Barnard, a women’s college, most of the employees are women—”but a lot of the ones who show up at the office these days are men,” writes Barnard president Sian Beilock in a recent piece for the Washington Post. Remote-work arrangements may end up hurting women, she says, if it means that female employees are
An important cue of belonging: the people who are present Continue Reading >
We know that the capacity to self-regulate—to focus one’s attention and control one’s behavior—is really important. Self-regulation in early childhood is linked with later academic success and general well-being. But we tend to think of self-regulation as something that’s generated internally, through an exertion of will or “grit.” A new study suggests that the resources
Exposure to nature helps kids to self-regulate Continue Reading >
Bias exists not only in people’s minds, but in physical settings. Recognizing this fact can help us answer an urgent question: Why are women so underrepresented in fields like computer science? In a recent paper, psychologists Sapna Cheryan and Hazel Rose Markus propose an interesting explanation, pointing to the presence of what they call “masculine
A lack of belonging, by default Continue Reading >