Society & Culture

Our Culture Of Objectification Is Not Good Enough For Our Girls

Flickr Images Citizens of Australia, we have a problem. This problem is directly impacting our entire population. It can lead to depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, body issues, eating disorders, sexual dysfunction and social isolation. The problem is the sexual objectification of women, and at the root of that is misogyny. Women are being [...]

Australia Broadly Tolerant, But Pockets Of Intense Prejudice Remain

Flickr Images "Social cohesion is not a destination,” says Andrew Markus. “We don’t get to the destination and say we’ve done it. It’s something we need to work at.” Markus is a Monash University professor who oversees the Scanlon reports, a now regular and widespread exercise to measure social cohesion in Australia. Its [...]

Don’t Try To Be Happy. We’re Programmed To Be Dissatisfied.

Flickr Images In the 1990s, a psychologist named Martin Seligman led the positive psychology movement, which placed the study of human happiness squarely at the centre of psychology research and theory. It continued a trend that began in the 1960s with humanistic and existential psychology, which emphasized the importance of reaching one’s innate [...]

Relationships – Hope

Pixabay Images The fourth quality in the Relationship Quotient (RQ) is hope. Hope is the belief the future offers the prospects of better outcomes than the present. Hope is the promise to actively give, to promote the mutual purpose of the relationship and to always care for the other. Hope implies that each [...]

Man Who Makes Child Sex Dolls For Paedophiles

Flikr Images Customs is cracking down on shipments of life-like child sex dolls that paedophiles are importing into Australia. Border force officials have seized 18 consignments of child sex dolls sent from overseas since 2013. The life-size dolls, which resemble children as young as five and are sold wearing lingerie, have movable joints [...]

What Does Diversity Do To Kids’ Brains?

Pixabay Images There’s some intriguing new brain science going on that might tell us interesting things about racial prejudice. As it’s gotten less and less acceptable for people to express explicitly racist beliefs and opinions, many researchers have turned their attention to so-called implicit bias, or the subtle, often unconscious ways people respond to people [...]

Three Personality Traits Of Aggressive People

Pixabay Images Aggressive and confrontational people who become perpetrators of violence can be easily identified by a "red triad" of personality traits, a Texan researcher told a conference on reducing aggression on Saturday. William Ickes, a personality and social psychologist from the University of Texas, Arlington, told the 22nd world meeting of the [...]

Teaching Kids Empathy: In Danish Schools, It’s…Well, It’s A Piece Of Cake

Flikr Images We all know what a Danish pastry is — that delightful caloric bomb of glazed breakfast deliciousness. But what about a Danish classroom cake? And moreover, how can this help teach empathy? In the Danish education system empathy is considered as important as teaching math and literature, and it is woven [...]

The Benefits Of Mentoring

Flikr Images A key protective factor enabling young people to make a successful transition into adulthood has been identified as a relationship with a caring adult outside the young person’s immediate family.[1] In a study on resilience, Emily Werner and a team of professionals followed the development of children born in 1955 on [...]

Alcohol Advertising In Sport: Influence And Irony

Encounter Youth In Australia, alcohol advertisements are not permitted on TV during times that children are likely to be watching, usually defined as between 7:00am and 8:30pm[1]. There is however, one glaring exception to this rule: alcohol advertising in sport. As long as it is during a sport broadcast, alcohol is free to [...]

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