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What your friends' brains look like when they think of you: Your brain patterns are reflected in them, study finds -- ScienceDaily

The fMRI took images of each person's brain while they completed a task similar to the one they did earlier. They rated each of their friends and themselves on 48 traits, including lonely, sad, cold, lazy, overcritical, trustworthy, enthusiastic, clumsy, fashionable, helpful, smart, punctual and nice. As they expected from previous research, the researchers saw activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain implicated in thinking about the self and close others, as the participants thought about the personality traits of themselves and their friends. The study found that for each participant, the combined brain activity of their friends evaluating them looked a lot like their own brain activity. This suggests that order to accurately perceive another person, your neural representation of that person -- your patterns of brain activity for their identity -- has to essentially match the pattern in that persons' brain when they are thinking about themselves, Wagner said.

How not to say the wrong thing - Los Angeles Times


How Feeling Unhappy Affects Your Friendships - The Atlantic

If someone were especially unhappy at noon on a Saturday, that person would be almost two times more likely to see a friend that afternoon than if he or she were especially happy at noon. Meanwhile, if that person were particularly happy, his or her odds of interacting with a stranger that afternoon would go up by 20 percent. Those interactions might then feed on each other, with strangers making the person uncomfortable and less happy and close friends cheering him or her up again—and make the person eager to spend time with more strangers.

How parents cause children's friendships to end -- ScienceDaily


A neuroscientist who studies decision-making reveals the most important choice you can make | World Economic Forum


Psychosis incidence highly variable internationally -- ScienceDaily

Among the contributing factors under consideration, they found that the strongest area-level predictor of high rates of psychotic disorders was a low rate of owner-occupied housing. The researchers used owner-occupied housing as an indicator of socio-economic affluence and stability. "Areas with higher rates of owner-occupied housing have lower rates of psychosis, which may be linked to social deprivation. People in areas that are socially deprived may have more social stresses, which could predict psychosis incidence, as suggested by other studies. An alternative explanation could be that owner-occupied housing is an indicator of social stability and cohesiveness, relating to stronger support networks," said the study's first author, Hannah Jongsma (University of Cambridge). In line with previous research, higher incidence of psychosis was also associated with younger age (although the authors also identified a secondary peak in middle age among women), males, and ethnic minorities. A related paper investigating psychosis incidence in a rural region of England, also led by Dr Kirkbride and published last week in JAMA Psychiatry, found that while people from ethnic minorities are more likely to experience a psychotic disorder, these rates become lower in areas with a high degree of ethnic diversity -- both for the majority- and minority-ethnic individuals, potentially suggesting that greater social connections between individuals from different backgrounds is protective against some mental health issues.

You're not alone in feeling alone: Believing you have fewer friends than your peers can contribute to unhappiness -- ScienceDaily

The researchers found a greater proportion of students (48 per cent) believed other students had made more close friends than they did. Thirty-one per cent believed the opposite. A second survey tracking 389 students across their first year found students who believed their peers had more friends at the beginning of the year reported lower levels of wellbeing. However, several months later, the same students who thought their peers had moderately more friends than they did at the beginning of the year reported making more friends compared to students who thought their peers had many more friends. "We think students are motivated to make more friends if they think their peers only have one or two more friends than they do," said Whillans. "But if they feel like the gap is too big, it's almost as if they give up and feel it isn't even worth trying."

To lose weight, and keep it off, be prepared to navigate interpersonal challenges -- ScienceDaily

"All 40 of the study participants reported having people in their lives try to belittle or undermine their weight loss efforts," Romo says. "This negative behavior is caused by what I call lean stigma. However, the study found participants used specific communication strategies to cope with lean stigma and maintain both their weight loss and their personal relationships." The communication strategies fell into two different categories. The first category focused on study participants helping other people "save face," or not feel uncomfortable about the study participant's weight loss and healthy eating habits. The second category focused on damage control: participants finding ways to mitigate discomfort people felt about an individual's weight loss and related lifestyle changes.

Birds of a Feather Do Flock Together. - PubMed - NCBI

We argue that the lack of evidence for personality similarity stems from the tendency of individuals to make personality judgments relative to a salient comparison group, rather than in absolute terms (i.e., the reference-group effect), when responding to the self-report and peer-report questionnaires commonly used in personality research. We employed two behavior-based personality measures to circumvent the reference-group effect. The results based on large samples provide evidence for personality similarity between romantic partners ( n = 1,101; rs = .20-.47) and between friends ( n = 46,483; rs = .12-.31). We discuss the practical and methodological implications of the findings.

How many friends can you have?


Pain tolerance predicts human social network size : Scientific Reports

What's the 'real' context for friendship? (Is FB year round now?)

A commemorative friend is not someone you expect to hear from, or see, maybe ever again. But they were important to you at an earlier time in your life, and you think of them fondly for that reason, and still consider them a friend. Facebook makes things weird by keeping these friends continually in your peripheral vision. It violates what I’ll call the camp-friend rule of commemorative friendships: No matter how close you were with your best friend from summer camp, it is always awkward to try to stay in touch when school starts again. Because your camp self is not your school self, and it dilutes the magic of the memory a little to try to attempt a pale imitation at what you had.

Friendship as an idiom


Friends collaborate better in work

Friendship groups performed significantly better than acquaintance groups on both decision-making and motor tasks because of a greater degree of group commitment and cooperation. Critical evaluation and task monitoring also significantly increased decision-making performance, whereas positive communication mediated the relationship between friendship and motor task performance.

Friends at work

In surveys across three countries, Americans reported inviting 32 percent of their closest colleagues to their homes, compared with 66 percent in Poland and 71 percent in India. Americans have gone on vacation with 6 percent of their closest co-workers, versus 25 percent in Poland and 45 percent in India.

Friends at Work? Not So Much

In 1985, about half of Americans said they had a close friend at work; by 2004, this was true for only 30 percent. And in nationally representative surveys of American high school seniors, the proportion who said it was very important to find a job where they could make friends dropped from 54 percent in 1976, to 48 percent in 1991, to 41 percent in 2006.

Oliver Sacks on Learning He Has Terminal Cancer

I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Advertisement Continue reading the main story This will involve audacity, clarity and plain speaking; trying to straighten my accounts with the world. But there will be time, too, for some fun (and even some silliness, as well). Continue reading the main story Recent Comments CT February 19, 2015 As the mother of an autistic child with a brilliant, very alive mind I thank you deeply for helping open minds to all of the wonderful human... Nightwood February 19, 2015 Dear Dr. Sacks. Some people say there are no miracles in this immense universe. Still, some how you popped up and became a walking, two... Diane McIntyre February 19, 2015 Dr Sacks, you are-- and have been-- my hero. Live with verve. See All Comments I feel a sudden clear focus and perspective. There is no time for anything inessential. I must focus on myself, my work and my friends.

Three personality types

There are three basic attachment types: Secure, anxious and avoidant. Secure people, roughly 55% of the population, had parents who were consistently caring and responsive; these people are typically loving and comfortable with intimacy. The other 45% have an attachment style that is more problematic—either anxious, avoidant or some combination. Avoidant people, about 15% of the population, try to minimize closeness. Their parents typically were withholding or unresponsive. These folks aren't your blabbers. In fact, in interviews to determine personality type, therapists consider short, concise answers to be a marker of an avoidant attachment style. Long, drawn-out answers typically indicate an anxious type. Anxious people, who make up roughly 15% of the population, typically had parents who were inconsistently nurturing. They are overly sensitive to social cues and prone to overmanaging their personal connections. (The other 15% are a combination.)

Megaphone for what?

At the museum, Spartz waited backstage while Jake Brewer—a manager at, a platform for petitions—delivered a speech about online organizing. Brewer, who is thirty-four, warned that online activists needed to be more strategic. “The Internet has created a huge megaphone,” he said. “That’s great, but it often creates so much noise that the people on the receiving end can’t hear anything.”

Paul Panitz gets started in Hungary

Paul Panitz is a 43-year-old who created his own typesetting company and then sold it for a substantial sum three years ago, leaving him free to pursue other projects. Like many people, he was moved by last year's historic events in Eastern Europe and wanted to be part of them. He first approached me in February 1990, asking for advice on how to aid the cause of a free press in Eastern Europe. (Eventually, we made a loan-equity deal with a large daily newspaper over there, lending a fair amount of money in return for a potential stake in the company.) We also discussed setting up a small business in Hungary, not unlike the one Paul had started in America. The venture would throw us into the thick of Eastern European economic change; it would contribute some capital and jobs to Hungary's fledgling free market, and, properly run, it just might turn a profit someday.
Our guide explained that the horses, despite being extraordinarily intelligent beings, had a hard time making sense of seeing their friends appear out of nowhere, then disappear into the distance. Falling out of sight held the terror of being forever lost. My horse was calling out, making sure his friend was still there – that neither was lost. Underneath the geographic disorientation, one can imagine, lies a primal fear of losing control.
Michael Bassik, CEO of Burson-Marsteller's Proof Integrated Communications digital division, is joining MDC Partners as managing director and president of Digital Operations. Bassik will be responsible for partnering with MDC’s strategic communications firms, including public relations, corporate communications and financial communications consulting.
I do think there is a predilection for blogging among post-communist expats. In the early 1990s, Budapest and Prague attracted publishing renegades, a mini-generation of people who decided that life was too short NOT to join the adventure after the Wall came down. Once here, we couldn’t tap into any old-boy networks or climb any corporate ladders; we invented new structures, businesses and networks. We are, as a group, infatuated with revolutions. So blogging seems a natural fit for people like Ben Sullivan, Matt Welch, Ken Layne, Emmanuelle Richard, Nick Denton, Rick Bruner, you and me. Somehow, having lived outside the system, we were better able to see blogging’s unique applications. Rather than saying “gee, but this doesn’t match traditional media’s credibility or resources,” we were more likely to say “gee, but look at all the neat new things it does do.” We’ve all stayed in touch, we’ve learned from each other. I told Nick Denton about Google a few years ago and he told me about I’ll say semi-seriously that, in the long run, I think I got the better half of the trade. You take your friends more seriously than you take some case study you read in Business 2.0. Though I have to say I’m still astonished by the number of publishers, journalists, ad reps and professional writers who STILL don’t get the professional implications of the Internet. They use Google every hour, but they still don’t quite understand that nobody needs anyone’s permission to publish. A few publishers see this, but not many. I’d love to meet more publishers who get it.