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Saturday, 24 February 2018
Hard Boiled Eggs Nutrient Facts
Eating eggs, such as hard boiled eggs, instead of carbohydrate-rich breakfast foods like bagels, for breakfast may help you lose weight, according to a study published in "Nutrition Research" in February 2010. Eggs' high protein content helps fill you up so you aren't tempted to overeat at your next meal. Hard boiled eggs are also good sources of essential vitamins and minerals.
Calorie and Macronutrient Content
Eat a large hard boiled egg and you'll be consuming 78 calories, 6.3 grams of protein, 0.6 grams of carbohydrate and 5.3 grams of fat, including 1.6 grams of saturated fat. This is just 8 percent of the daily value for fat and saturated fat, but 13 percent of the DV for protein.
Cholesterol Content Concerns
While people with high cholesterol shouldn't make a daily habit of consuming eggs due to their relatively high cholesterol content, a study published in the "British Medical Journal" in 2013 found that for healthy people, eating up to one egg per day didn't increase the risk of heart disease or stroke. Saturated fat affects your cholesterol levels much more than dietary cholesterol, and eggs are relatively low in saturated fat. However, aim to keep your daily cholesterol intake within the recommended limit of 200 milligrams per day for people with high cholesterol or 300 milligrams per day for healthy people. Each large egg provides 186 milligrams of dietary cholesterol.
Vitamin and Mineral Makeup
Eggs also provide significant amounts of essential micronutrients. You'll get 11 percent of the DV for vitamin D, 10 percent of the DV for vitamin B-12 and 9 percent of the DV for phosphorus each time you eat a large hard boiled egg. You need vitamin D for healthy immune function and absorbing calcium to form strong bones. Vitamin B-12 and phosphorus are both essential for forming DNA and healthy red blood cells to transport oxygen around your body.
Options for Optimal Nutrition
If you eat eggs regularly, you may want to invest in true free-range eggs, which come from chickens that spend most of their lives outside in the grass instead of in cages or inside buildings, as is the case with most chickens raised for eggs. A 2007 article published in "Mother Earth News" reported on a study which determined that these eggs contain more of the healthy nutrients omega-3 fats, vitamins A and E and beta carotene and less unhealthy saturated fat and cholesterol than conventional eggs.
The Benefits of Hard-Boiled Eggs for Weight Loss
Hard-boiled eggs are easy to work into your calorie budget, but that isn’t all they can do to help you lose weight. Eggs support weight loss by keeping hunger at bay and preventing big spikes in blood sugar. The protein in eggs preserves muscle mass so you can burn fat, and other nutrients in eggs support the metabolism of carbs and fat. Hard-boiled eggs also contribute essential nutrients, including vitamin B-12, vitamin D, selenium and protein.
Hard-Boiled Eggs Are Low in Calories
Weight loss comes down to making the body used stored fat for energy, which is accomplished by consuming fewer calories than needed for energy. Hard-boiled eggs work well for cutting back on calories because one large egg only has 78 calories. The cooking method makes a difference though, as eggs gain extra calories and fat when they’re fried or scrambled in butter or other fat.
In spite of the moderate amount of calories, keep an eye on the number of eggs you eat. The cholesterol from eggs has only a small impact on blood levels of cholesterol for most people. Healthy individuals can eat up to one whole egg daily without worrying about increasing their risk of heart disease, reports the Harvard School of Public Health. Current recommendations for people who have high cholesterol, diabetes or cardiovascular disease is to limit egg yolk consumption to no more than three weekly.
If you want to eat more eggs, just remove the yolk. Even if a little yolk residue remains on the hard-boiled egg white, you’ll still eliminate the fats, including cholesterol. Without the yolk, you can eat quite a few additional egg whites because one large white only has about 17 calories. For example, an omelet made with 1 whole egg and 3 additional egg whites contains only about 130 calories.
Protein in Hard-Boiled Eggs Supports Weight Loss
High-protein foods move through the digestive tract more slowly; as a result, you feel full longer, and it’s easier to eat less. Proteins also help prevent spikes in blood sugar. When blood sugar spikes, it subsequently cycles down to low levels, which triggers hunger and leads to unnecessary eating. Avoiding high blood sugar also lowers the chance that excess sugar will be stored as fat.
Another important advantage you’ll get from eating protein is that it preserves muscle mass. When two groups of adults ate the same number of calories but different amounts of protein, the group who ate 30 percent of their daily calories from protein lost more fat and less muscle than the group who consumed half that amount of protein, reported Nutrition and Metabolism in 2012.
Eggs contain quality protein that’s highly digestible and contains a sufficient amount of all the essential amino acids. One large hard-boiled egg provides 6 grams of protein. Since women need 46 grams daily, and men should get 56 grams, one egg supplies 13 percent and 11 percent of the daily intake, respectively. Since the protein is split fairly evenly between the yolk and white, you’ll lose almost half the grams of protein by eating just the egg white.
Eggs for Breakfast Enhances Weight Loss
Several studies point to the weight-loss benefits of eating eggs for breakfast. In one study, two groups ate the same number of calories for breakfast, but one group ate eggs and the other had bagels. After eight weeks, the egg-eating group lost 65 percent more weight and 16 percent more body fat, according to the International Journal of Obesity in 2008. The researchers concluded that eggs can improve weight loss when they’re part of an energy-deficit diet. An earlier study found that subjects who had eggs at breakfast ate less food several hours following their meal than those who ate bagels.
Eating a high-protein breakfast of eggs and beef helped adolescent girls eat less throughout the day and even reduced their after-dinner snacking, according to a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2013. Compared to girls eating a cereal-based breakfast, the high-protein group felt fuller and their levels of hunger-controlling hormones increased.
The Impact of Eggs on Metabolism
Eggs are one of the best sources of choline, an essential nutrient that must be obtained through your diet. Choline facilitates the digestion of fat and is used to produce the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which is important for memory and learning. It also regulates fat metabolism in the liver, where it helps prevent excess fat accumulation. While more research is needed to verify the results, one study found that choline helped female athletes rapidly reduce body fat, reported the Journal of Human Kinetics in 2014.
When eggs are part of a low-carbohydrate diet, they help increase levels of adiponectin, according to a study in Nutrition and Metabolism in 2008. Adiponectin is a hormone that boosts metabolism and helps the body break down fats. It also lowers inflammation and improves the body’s ability to respond to insulin.
Eating one egg daily improved inflammation better than a breakfast of oatmeal in people with diabetes, and didn't affect levels of blood glucose, reported the journal Nutrients in 2015. This study suggests that eggs may not increase the risk of heart disease in people with diabetes, but consult your physician to be sure they’re safe for your diet.
Friday, 23 February 2018
How to Be Happy: 23 Ways to Be Happier
People often ask me: "What can I do to boost my happiness?"
I tell them that there are tons of things you can do, but then I can only recall a handful of practices in the moment. So I decided to create this complete guide for how to be happy, according to science. If you use these 23 practices consistently, you are very likely to increase your personal happiness:
1. Find out what to do first.
How are you supposed to build the right happiness skills if you don't know which ones you are struggling with in the first place? This is why it's helpful to take a quiz to explore your happiness strengths and weaknesses. Get a better understanding of what these skills are all about, and learn how to improve upon your weaknesses and build your "happiness strengths."
2. Give yourself a confidence boost.
Why would you bother increasing your happiness if you didn't think you could be successful at it? You wouldn't. That's why it's so important to build your self-efficacy — to prove to yourself that you can increase your happiness. The best way to do this is by starting with easier skills — skills like gratitude or prioritizing spending time doing fun things. Get a quick win, and you'll be more confident that you really can change your life.
3. Fuel your progress by learning how to feel better about yourself.
You wouldn't practice math to get better at cooking. And you wouldn't learn another language to lose weight. To be happier, you'll likely make more progress by focusing on the skills that are most closely linked to happiness. In my research, the skill that usually turns out to be most closely linked to happiness is: positive self-views. Learning how to feel better about yourself — for example, by imagining your best possible self, noting your positive qualities, or identifying your strengths — can go a long way to increasing your happiness.
4. Create balance and overcome burnout.
How are you supposed to have the energy to be happier if you're exhausted and miserable from work? It will be really hard. Building new skills, skills that will help you be happier, will take time and energy. So it's helpful first to create better work-life balance.
5. Build a growth mindset for happiness.
A growth mindset refers to the belief that we can change ourselves. When we build a growth mindset for happiness, we believe we can change our happiness. This is super important, because if we don't believe we can increase our happiness, we won't even bother to try.
6. Make positive memories.
Every region in our brains can be strengthened through practice. If our brains are really good at remembering negative things that happen, it can be useful to strengthen the regions of the brain responsible for remembering positive things.
7. Find those silver linings.
Everything we experience can be a bummer if we choose to see it that way. But when you search for the benefits or silver linings in your life, you may be surprised to discover a lot of good. Keep practicing to increase the positive and decrease the negative to cultivate happiness. Also, this skill has been linked to a better ability to cope with stress and be more resilient.
8. Take breaks from social media.
Facebook tends to have a negative effect on our happiness. By choosing to take breaks from Facebook — or changing the way we use social media — we can boost our happiness.
9. Spend smarter for more happiness.
How we choose to spend our money impacts what we can do and how we live in ways that impact how happy we are. When we choose a less fancy house or car — things that don't bring us much happiness — we have more money to spend on adventures or on gifts for friends: things that actually do make us happier.
10. Communicate kindly.
When we are kind to others, we feel better about ourselves. We can do nice things for others, be empathetic, or we can just treat each other with respect, communicating kindly rather than assuming the worst.
11. End your negative patterns of thinking.
Let's face it: Sometimes we are what's making us miserable. We just can't stop thinking about how so-and-so wronged us, or how our life didn't turn out as we hoped. Negative thought processes — like worrying, ruminating, self-judgment, and fearing rejection — just keep us miserable and unable to move forward. When you find yourself thinking negatively, pause and refocus your thoughts. In time, your brain will be able to do this more easily on its own.
12. Find clarity.
How are you supposed to move your life forward when you don't even know what you feel or why you feel it? To become happier, try to gain clarity on your emotions; find out what you're feeling and what caused those feelings.
13. Live your values.
When you start to explore yourself and your values, you may discover that you've known all along what would make you happy, but you're just not doing it. To be happier, get clear on your values, so that you can live your life autonomously, according to your own principles and values.
14. Pay attention to the good.
Sure, sometimes life is hard. But by paying attention to the good, you can rise above it and be more resilient. When you find the good, savor the moment, and bring it with you to maintain happiness even during hard times. Or try thinking about a time in the future when you'll feel better.
15. Use your imagination to create the life you seek.
Did you know that your brain has a difficult time differentiating between things that happen in your imagination and things that happen in real life? So when you imagine something — even happiness — your brain acts as if it's real. We can use imagination to help create happiness out of thin air and enjoy our experiences more.
16. Stay mindful.
Sometimes we want to escape. The world seems dark and scary, but by practicing mindfulness we experience more fully both the positive and the negative — we are more fully engaged in our lives.
17. Explore what happiness means to you.
We all define happiness in different ways. When you know what happiness means to you, you'll have an easier time finding it. So explore happiness — what it means, what it looks like, and what it feels like — to more easily create it.
18. Go after life.
How are you supposed to change your life by doing the same things you've always done? It's pretty tough. Instead, push yourself to overcome fear and approach life with enthusiasm. Try "doing the opposite" to see how it feels and to make your brain more flexible.
19. Speak up and be yourself.
When we let people walk all over us, we're unhappy. But when we advocate for our own needs assertively and express ourselves, we feel more in control of our lives. Learning how to express yourself can help you overcome interpersonal challenges, which can make you unhappy.
20. Find your purpose.
We all want to feel like we made some sort of positive impact in this world, but sometimes we are uncertain of the type of impact we want to make. Explore exactly what gives you a sense of purpose and how you want to pursue this purpose to give your life a greater sense of meaning.
21. Build meaningful connections.
Did you know we enjoy just about everything more when we do it with others? This is why one of the best things you can do for your happiness is to build meaningful relationships and social connections. To strengthen these relationships, practice kindness and gratitude towards the people you care about.
22. Get off the hedonic treadmill.
The "hedonic treadmill" refers to the tendency for us to return to our original happiness level over time. To boost your baseline-level happiness, you can try changing your physiology through nutrition and exercise. To maintain your happiness, you have to get out of your comfort zone and keep adding variety to your happiness plan.
23. Hold yourself accountable.
We are more likely to do the things we say we're going to do if we schedule time in our calendars to do them. We can also more easily stay on track if we get accountability from others. So if you really want to be happier, don't let yourself get away with being unhappy.
What's So Positive About Positive Psychology?
Chances are, if you are reading this then you are at least passingly familiar with the emerging field of positive psychology. Although every religious and philosophical tradition through antiquity has offered insight into the “good life” it is only in the last couple decades that we have truly been able to turn scientific attention to this important topic in a sophisticated way. Modern scientists have used careful research designs, validated assessments and rich theory to produce new and sometimes counter-intuitive ideas about age-old topics such as happiness, resilience, and hope. Among the set-pieces of this modern movement are so-called “positive psychology interventions.” These are, more or less, simple behaviors in which a person can engage to improve her own well-being. The most famous of these is the “gratitude exercise.” In this exercise people are instructed to jot down “three things” for which they are grateful. The list might include a reliable automobile, a sunny afternoon, or a healthy child. The list will change from person to person and from time to time. The results are in, however: the gratitude exercise appears to boost individual happiness and buffer people from the deleterious effects of depression. This finding has been replicated and most famously so with a randomized controlled study conducted by positive psychology founder Martin Seligman and his colleagues.
Since that initial study appeared in 2005 there have been other positive psychology interventions that have been tested and have shown—at least in a preliminary way—evidence for small boosts in happiness. One of these is the “counting kindnesses” intervention conducted by Keiko Otake and her colleagues. As the name implies people who kept a tally of their daily kindnesses felt a little spring in their step as a result. The publication of the counting kindnesses intervention set me to wondering what the causal mechanisms were that might form the foundation of positive psychology interventions. Could it be, for instance, that the gratitude exercise actually boosts appreciation and this improved mindfulness translates to a better mood? Or might it be that gratitude works primarily by reminding people to appreciate things they overlook, and in this ways functions primarily by acting as an antidote to the natural human tendency to adapt.
Privately, I have been worried by what I see as the uncritical acceptance of these intervention techniques by some coaches and other human service professionals. It’s nice to know that these techniques work—for the most part—but isn’t it even nicer to understand how they work? For months I harbored a sneaking suspicion that positive psychology interventions such as counting kindnesses and the gratitude exercise were simply “listing interventions.” That is, I was curious to know if we might find the same rise in happiness if we had people simply list anything positive. Imagine having people keep a daily “courage diary” in which they listed three ways they didn’t let discomfort hold them back. Or picture a scenario in which people tally hopes, such as “three things that are likely to happen in the next two weeks that you are eagerly looking forward to.” Could it be that any instance of pen, paper and positivity constitutes an effective positive psychology intervention?
Interestingly, this exact premise was tested in a study that appeared in the Journal of Clinical Psychology. The researchers replicated the classic Seligman study using a sample of nearly 1,500 adults ranging in age from 18 to 72. They included the gratitude exercise, a “positive placebo” in which they had participants write for 10 minutes each evening about a positive memory, and a control placebo in which they had participants wrote for 10 minutes each evening about an early life memory (not necessarily a positive one). Using the same happiness assessment employed by Seligman in the original study, the researchers discovered that the positive memory exercise performed roughly in the same way that the gratitude exercise did: both boosted happiness and did so over three and six month follow-ups. Now, on the one hand, it would seem that the researchers have created yet another positive psychology intervention. Hooray! We can now add the “positive memory exercise” to the stable of happiness boosting activities.
In the end, however, the researchers draw much the same conclusion I do: there is some common factor that acts as the therapeutic mechanism for many of these “listing interventions.” According to the researchers, engaging in any activity that makes positive self-information more accessible is likely to have a tonic effect on people. This does not mean that we should dismiss positive psychology exercises as somehow “fake.” It does mean that we should not rush to mental closure on their effectiveness or the ways in which we use them. This is an important study because it opens the door to exciting new research questions: are there different types of positive psychology interventions? Will some types work better with certain people than with others? Are there people for whom these activities are contra-indicated? Is salient positive self-information as powerful as positive information about loved ones? How might these interventions be modified to be more effective across cultural boundaries? We are just scratching the surface of these tools.
What Is Depression?
Some 15 million Americans a year struggle with depression, an illness that comes in many forms—from major depression and seasonal affective disorder, to dysthymia and bipolar disorder. Depression is an illness that increasingly afflicts people worldwide, interfering with concentration, motivation and many other aspects of everyday functioning. It is a complex disorder, involving many systems of the body, including the immune system, either as cause or effect. It disrupts sleep, and it interferes with appetite, in some cases causing weight loss, in others weight gain. Because of its complexity, a full understandingof depression has been elusive.
Scientists have some evidence that the condition is related to diet, both directly—through the nutrients we consume, such as omega-3 fats—and indirectly, through the composition of the bacteria in the gut. Of course, depression involves mood and thoughts as well as the body, and it causes pain for both those with the disorder and those who care about them. Depression is increasingly common in children.
Everyone experiences an occasional blue mood; depression is a more pervasive experience of repetitive negative rumination, bleak outlook, and lack of energy. It is not a sign of personal weakness or a condition that can be willed or wished away. People with depression cannot merely "pull themselves together" and get better. There is some evidence that, painful as depression is, it serves a positive purpose, bringing with it ways of thinking that force people to focus on problems as a prelude to solving them.
Even in the most severe cases, depression is highly treatable. The condition is often cyclical, and early treatment may prevent or forestall recurrent episodes. Many studies show that the most effective treatment is cognitive behavioral therapy, which addresses problematic thought patterns, with or without the use of antidepressant drugs. In addition, evidence is quickly accumulating that regular mindfulness meditation, on its own or combined with cognitive therapy, can stop depression before it starts by effectively disengaging attention from the repetitive negative thoughts that often set in motion the downward spiral of mood.
The Top 10 Reasons to Major in Psychology
If you’ve studied psychology in college, or know someone who has, you’ve undoubtedly heard the claim that psychology majors can't get jobs. A recent investigation into the question of whether there are too many psych majors reveals that this is not the case, as published in the report: "Are There Too Many Psych Majors?" The American Psychological Association and the Florida Psychology Department Chairs, responding to concerns about psychology being “too popular” as a major, prepared this White Paper to examine the facts about the employability of psychology majors. The surprising results show that in contrast to the view that it prepares students for very little of practical value, the undergraduate psychology major is one of the best choices a college student can make.
Before we answer the question of why psychology is such a sound choice for a major, let’s tackle the myths about the psychology major that many prospective students believe.
Based on the APA/Florida report, these are the four most common misbeliefs:
You can become a therapist with a bachelor’s degree. Although many students think they may be one or two courses away from being a “Dr. Phil,” the truth is that becoming a therapist does take training. That said, you can pursue many jobs in the mental healthfield with four solid years, plus practicals or internships, of courses within the major. However, it’s not true that…
You can’t get a job in an area of psychology with a bachelor’s degree. You can’t become a licensed psychologist unless you have graduate training plus additional hours of supervision, but the skills you gain as a psychology major translate well into many jobs, especially in entry-level positions. We’ll talk more about this shortly.
Psychology is an art, not a science. There may be applications of psychology to the arts, but the field is a science, one that is increasingly gaining recognition as a “STEM” (Science-Technology-Engineering-Mathematics) discipline.
Psychology is easy. Many people believe that psychology is nothing more than “common sense” and therefore is an easy field to master. In reality, the study of psychology involves rigorous training in topics ranging from statistics to neuroscience, and all psychology majors must complete a set of in-depth core courses based on this knowledge.
Now that we’ve laid these myths to rest, it’s time to examine the evidence showing the true advantages of majoring in psychology. Workforce analyses of psychology majors show that psychology graduates do get jobs using their degree. They may not be “psychologists” until they complete their graduate training, but they put their psychology skills to use. According to the White Paper Report, over 40% of bachelor’s level psychologists work in for-profit jobs in business and industry. The next largest group, between 20-30%, work in educational institutions. Approximately 15-20% work, respectively, in government and not-for-profit organizations. The remainder are self-employed. Although fewer than 25% of all psychology majors actually work in the field of psychology after graduation, they do qualify for entry-level positions in fields as diverse as marketing, sales, advertising, rehabilitation or psychiatric services, real estate, social work, child care, parole, and career counseling. According to the College Majors Handbook, and as reported in the White Paper, the top 10 occupations that employ bachelor’s level psychology majors include management, sales, social work, personnel, health care, and financial specialists.
Source:
Unfortunately, those who work in psychology-related fields directly tend to earn less than those in other science disciplines. In 2006 terms, the median annual salary of bachelor’s level psychology majors was $30,000. In 2010, APA estimated that the starting salary for a psychology major is $36,400. Within related fields, the highest incomes are earned by psychology majors who become medical and health services managers, and the lowest are preschool teachers and teachers assistants. The median income is admittedly less than the $51,000 earned by a mechanical engineer, and less in fact than other science-related disciplines. One reason for the lower earnings of psychology majors is not that the degree is worth any less, but that education and many social services fields are severely underfunded. If you want a job with a bachelor’s degree in teaching or human services, you will sacrifice your salary, no matter what your college major.
Fortunately, however, many psychology majors do go on to complete a graduate degree, which will benefit their career earnings potential. The White Paper reports that 40% of psychology majors complete some form of graduate training, placing psychology among the highest of all undergraduate majors in post-graduate degree completion.
Psychology’s popularity is growing quickly. In 2007, 90,000 of the over 1.5 million bachelor’s degrees awarded in the U.S. were claimed by psychology majors, nearly a doubling from the slightly over 50,000 psychology degrees earned in 1998.
Why do students want this major, even though the salary prospects in psychology itself are not particularly high? You guessed it. Psychology majors want to help people! As the White Paper concluded, “Although the traditional introductory course design quickly disabuses students of the belief that psychology is solely about understanding and treating human abnormality, the breadth of introductory course content remains intrinsically interesting to most students” (p. 5). Apparently, we can't squelch the urge of psychology students to want to study psychology.
When all is said and done, psychology majors know a good thing when they see it. Psychology undergraduates gain valuable skills that give them an edge on the job market. The skills break down roughly to the types of courses that they take, which include rigorous training in statistics and research methods, neuroscience, individual and group processes, memory and learning, and psychopathology.
As outlined in the White Paper, these are the 10 skills that psychology majors gain while earning their undergraduate degrees, all of which make them highly desirable as they enter the job market. They can:
- predict and understand the behavior of individuals and groups;
- understand how to use and interpret data
- evaluate the legitimacy of claims about behavior
- know how memory and learning function
- have insight into problematic behaviors
- demonstrate the capacity to adapt to change
- understand and operate effectively throughout the channels of an organization
- manage difficult situations and high stress environments
- start and carry out projects with limited information or experience
- show persistence in challenging circumstances
This is a formidable set of skills and you might wonder how the average 22-year-old college graduate can carry these out so well. If you understand how the major works, the answer is not quite so mysterious.
Psychology is the science of behavior, and psychologists learn how to predict, understand, explain, and control behavior. Though not professional psychologists, undergraduates are taught how to look carefully at behavior and gain exposure to basic principles such as motivation, learning, thinking, sensation, and perception. The average college-level introductory psychology course surveys the field and provides students with the background to get them started in the major, no matter which specific area they want to pursue.
With regard to understanding and using data, the basic statistics courses we offer in the major expose students not only to such topics as probability theory, but also the use of statistical software packages that only 15 or 20 years ago required considerable programming mastery. Students can now understand the reasoning behind the statistics that they in fact compute on their own. Many students also complete their own independent research projects (under the advising of a professor or graduate student) or at least participate in a lab to get hands-on experience. This gives them an appreciation not only for how research gets done, but why research is needed to gain a scientific understanding of behavior.
The content areas in the undergraduate psychology major build on these basic scientific skills. The standards that accredited undergraduate programs adhere to ensure that students complete requirements that give them exposure to the major substantive areas, from neuroscience to social psychology. Many students also learn how to conduct their own independent library research. They can choose from thousands of research articles because online databases have become so sophisticated that within a few keystrokes, they can gain access to almost any article on almost any topic. Through required lab sections, students also learn the basic mechanics of collecting, analyzing, and writing up laboratory data.
Psychology majors also learn about the informal and formal workings of organizations through courses in organizational and social psychology, and by becoming involved in the activities of their own schools and communities. Many psychology students naturally gravitate toward campus organizations, community volunteer opportunities, and even involvement in the politics of their local and state governments.
Source:
In terms of managing stress and learning persistence, psychology students may not be all that different from their fellow students in other majors who must balance their school obligations with other responsibilities at home and at work. However, psychology students have an edge over their peers because the content of their courses often directly addresses the problems they confront in their daily lives. They are learning in the classroom about such topics as sleep deprivation, stress and coping, family relationships and the scientific basis of addiction. Gaining mastery of the principles of memory, reinforcement, and behavior modification provides them with tools that they can use to manage their own academic and personal challenges.
Courses in developmental psychology, including the psychology of adolescence, help psychology majors learn about the development of their own identities. Gaining insight into identity development helps these young adults learn strategies to test their own values, priorities, and goals. Focusing their attention inward on their feelings and beliefs are processes that these development and adjustment courses foster, particularly when the courses allow students time for discussion and reflection.
What about the claim that psychology majors can start and execute projects with limited information or experience? Most undergraduates have limited information and experience. However, psychology majors learn the tools to cope with this situation because they learn about such organizational skills as time management and self-regulation (the ability to pace yourself). They also learn about motivation and managing emotions, which are two factors that contribute to the ability to get a job done even when the task is unclear at the outset.
Some potentially contradictory data about the benefits of the psych major came from a 2010 Wall Street Journal report. In a national survey, college alumni who graduated between 1999 and 2010 rated their satisfaction with their career path. Compared to the 54% of chemical engineers who said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their careers, only 26% of the over 10,000 former psychology majors felt positive about the direction their careers had taken them. The title of the article was “Psych Majors Aren’t Happy with Options.” However, the survey didn’t justify this conclusion. There was no direct evidence to show that the former psych majors felt that their college major was to blame for their lack of satisfaction. If the question was worded differently, the surveyors might have directly assessed whether the alums actually regretted their choice of a major instead of being dissatisfied with their careers more generally. We also don’t know if these students chose psychology because they couldn’t think of a better alternative, leading them to a less focused career path than students who majored in engineering, business, or computers. Had the article’s authors taken a course in psychological research, it’s quite likely they would have avoided this fatal flaw in their logic.
The moral of the story is clear. Parents, guidance counselors, teachers, advisors and- most importantly- students, don’t fear the psych major. Call me biased, but it’s hard to imagine a field that is more intriguing and compelling. And according to the White Paper Report, it’s also hard to imagine a field that gives you more valuable life skills.
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