【推荐1】Imagine you have made plans with a new friend to talk on the phone. You called, but there was no answer—and you didn't get a call back. What happened? Perhaps she got held up by caring for her children or an important task. Perhaps she didn't want to meet but didn't take the time to call off. Or maybe she had a busy week and simply forgot to write down your meeting time. Or it was possible that you called the wrong number.

In social situations like these, our minds can offer a variety of explanations, ranging from ones that are kind to ones that put the blame on the other party. Psychologists refer to this as our attributional style. Past research has found that individuals with a hostile attributional style— that is, who tend to think others' action is a result of bad intentions— tend to be less satisfied with their relationships.

According to a new study in the Journal of Happiness Studies, they're also generally less happy. That means that all those little assumptions we're making about other people might be something we can work on to improve our well-being.

In the study, 707 participants from the United States, Poland, and Japan were asked to analyze situations like the one above. Participants then rated the situation on three factors: how much they thought the other person acted purposely, how much blame they put on them, and how angry they were, as a measure of hostile attributions. They also filled out a questionnaire about the degree they considered themselves a happy person.

The researchers found that people who gave others the benefit of the doubt all the time were happy, compared to the participants who always blamed others. People who only sometimes gave others the benefit of the doubt were also happier.

The researchers can't say for sure whether seeing people as unfriendly directly lowers our happiness, or whether unhappy people are just more likely to make hostile attributions in the first place. However, this study does suggest the possibility that giving people the benefit of the doubt can improve our relationships and our well-being.

Dorota Jasielska, assistant professor at the Maria Grzegorzewska University in Warsaw and lead author of the paper, suggests that we start by developing positive and trusting social relationships. When we find ourselves surrounded by warmth and support, it can help us to see the social world in a more positive light. If you feel lonely, volunteering or joining friendly welcoming organizations can be a good way to broaden your social circle.

Another important strategy is to have open and direct communication. Instead of letting your anxieties get worse, Jasielska explains, it may be better to simply talk to people about their confusing behavior.

So the next time a friend calls off plans or forgets to text back, consider giving them the benefit of the doubt and waiting to hear their side of things before jumping to conclusions. Assuming others have good intentions— particularly the people we already know and love—will make the world seem like a friendlier place.

【推荐3】Small talk, also called chitchat, is short conversations people have with others, while they wait in line at the store, at family events or work. Many people find these small conversations about random topics difficult. Some people say they hate it. Others say small talk is a waste of time. They may even call it idle chitchat or idle chatter, meaning it doesn’t do anything, so they think little of it.    1    .

These exchanges can open doors that may lead to larger, more meaningful conversations. When you first meet someone or talk to someone you don’t know well, it would be awkward to begin a conversation about a really deep topic.    2    Let’s say you make small talk with someone at a party. But they only want to talk about their cats. Then you can talk about animals together first, which may lead the conversation to the way you want.

    3    Chatting with a colleague about his child may help you to understand more of his life outside the office. This could help build healthy work relationships.

Small talk could even help your larger communities----your relationships with neighbors and colleagues. Exchanging a recipe with a neighbor may make her noises upstairs easier to live with.

    4    Most people said they do not talk to strangers while travelling on a subway. Researchers at the University of Chicago then asked some participants in a study to talk to people while communicating to work on a train. They found that those who made small talk with strangers were happier than those who sat alone.    5    Maybe your life will become more cheerful just because of it.

【推荐1】Smile! It makes everyone in the room feel better because they, consciously or unconsciously, are smiling with you. Growing evidence shows that an instinct for facial mimicry (模仿) allows us to experience other people’s feelings. If we can’t mirror another person’s face, it limits our ability to read and properly react to their expressions. A review of this emotional mirroring appears on February 11 in Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

In their paper, Paula Niedenthal and Adrienne Wood, social psychologists at the University of Wisconsin, describe how people in social situations copy others’ facial expressions to create emotional responses in themselves. For example, if you’re with a friend who looks sad, you might “try on” that sad face yourself without realizing you’re doing so. In “trying on” your friend’s expression, it helps you to recognize what they’re feeling by connecting it with times in the past when you made that expression. Humans get this emotional meaning from facial expressions in a matter of only a few hundred milliseconds.

“You reflect on your emotional feelings and then you produce some sort of recognition judgment, and the most important thing that results in is that you take the appropriate action—you approach the person or you avoid the person,” Niedenthal says. “Your own emotional reaction to the face changes your understanding of how you see the face in such a way that provides you with more information about what it means.”

A person’s ability to recognize and “share” others’ emotions can be prevented when they can’t mimic faces. This is a common complaint for people with motor diseases, like facial paralysis (瘫痪) from a stroke, or even due to nerve damage from plastic surgery. Niedenthal notes that the same would not be true for people who suffer from birth, because if you’ve never had the ability to mimic facial expressions, you will have developed another ways of interpreting emotions. Niedenthal next wants to explore what part in the brain is functioning to help with facial expression recognition. A better understanding of that part, she says, will give us a better idea of how to treat related disorders.

【推荐2】A recent experiment held in Japan shows that it is almost impossible for people to walk exactly straight for 60 meters. Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology found 20 healthy men and asked them to walk as straight as possible to a target 60 meters away at normal speed. Each man had to walk on white paper fixed flat to the floor wearing wet coloured socks. The footprints revealed that all walked in a winding rather than a straight line. Researchers found that people readjust（重新调整)the direction of walking every few seconds. The amount of the winding differed from subject to subject. This suggests that none of us can walk in a strictly straight line. We walk in a winding way mainly because of a slight structural or functional imbalance of our limbs (四肢). Although we may start walking in a straight line, several steps afterwards we have changed direction.

Eyesight helps us to correct the direction of walking and leads you to the target. Your ears also help you walk. After turning around a lot with your eyes closed, you can hardly stand still, let alone walk straight.

It’s all because your ears help you balance. Inside your inner ear there is a structure which contains liquids. On the sides of the organ are many tiny hair-like structures that move around as the liquid flows. When you spin (旋转) the liquid inside also spins. The difference is that when you stop, the liquid continues to spin for a while. Dizziness (眩晕) is the result of these nerves in your ear. When you open your eyes, although your eyesight tells you to walk in a straight line, your brain will trust your ears more, and thus you walk in a curved line.

【推荐3】In the past year, Jeanne Raitt has had many roles while working with medical students at the KU School of Medicine-Wichita. She’s been the mom of a 5-year-old son with a serious illness, a patient relying on pain medication, and the daughter of a woman diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

Raitt is among 85 Wichitans who participate in the school’s standardized patient program. She and others in the program have been trained by staff at the Wichita campus’ standardized patient center to role-play patients or family members. The sessions enable students to practice their skills in taking medical histories, communication, interpersonal relationships, and their ability to handle sensitive issues and embarrassing situations.

“We provide a safe environment for students to practice their clinical skills before they see actual patients,” explains Jennifer Brantley, assistant director of the standardized patient center.

Take the case of 55-year-old Ellen Humphries, a college professor who is being seen for abdominal (腹部的)pain. After an exam, students and professors discuss how to treat someone like Ellen, who is educated, well-known in the community, and who isn’t willing to stick to medical recommendations.

“This is a great way to give medical students hands-on learning and training,” says Raitt. “I love watching how students learn about the variety of the cases and seeing how willing they are to accept feedback from us. Plus, it’s a bonus to get a little checkup now and then.”

For Natashia Gafford, being a standardized patient has provided her with reassurance that future doctors will be able to handle different situations. Gafford, who is the mother of six boys, particularly likes it when her role-playing corresponds with real-life issues she can relate to, such as advocating for her children’s health. “It puts my mind at ease as a parent to know that doctors will learn how to take parents into consideration,” she says.