"the pain of physical events may fade with time, while the pain of social occurrences can be re-instantiated through memory retrievals."

"My quick advice: try to be aware of when you start comparing yourself to others … once you’ve developed this awareness, try this trick: stop yourself. Tell yourself, “Stop that!” And then start thinking about all the things you DO have, the things you love, the people you have, the blessings that life has given you. Make this a regular practice, and you’ll start to be happier with your life."

"Silvia Galdi at the University of Padova, Italy, has found evidence that the final verdicts of undecided decision-makers are only weakly related to their conscious preferences and more strongly influenced by unconscious views and biases they aren't aware of. In many cases, when people claim that they are undecided, they have secretly made up our minds, unbeknownst even to themselves. "

But probably the most important driver of the happiness movement is the powerful mood of moral disorientation that prevails in Western societies. Western culture finds it difficult to give meaning to everyday experience through a language that clarifies what is good and bad or right and wrong. Such a mood of disorientation continually creates a demand for meaning. Layard understands this, which is why he says: "Clearly, I am talking about a movement of moral reform."

The authors studied groups of Hispanic women, all of whom were bilingual, but with varying degrees of cultural identification. They found significant levels of "frame-shifting" (changes in self perception) in bicultural participants—those who participate in both Latino and Anglo culture. While frame-shifting has been studied before, the new research found that biculturals switched frames more quickly and easily than bilingual monoculturals.

If there's one question we never tire of, it's whether men and women speak or feel or think in fundamentally different ways. Do women talk more than men? Are their brains hard-wired for empathy? Can innate differences explain men's and women's career choices? This is today's iteration of Mars and Venus, and it's everywhere.

Although the experimental philosophy movement is only a few years old, it has already led to a surge of new research -- including experimental studies that explore people's ordinary understanding of morality, free will, happiness and other key philosophical issues. The aim is to dive right into the messy real world and to use psychological experimentation to get at the roots of philosophical problems.

Feeling powerless can trigger strong desires to purchase products that convey high status, according to new research.

Letting your imagination run away with you may actually influence how you see the world. New research from Vanderbilt University has found that mental imagery—what we see with the "mind's eye"—directly impacts our visual perception.