If people know that excessive exposure to UV rays causes cancer, why do they still insist on grilling themselves? Health psychologists would love to know the answer so they could help curb the growing rates of skin cancer. The obvious answer is that people think that tanned skin makes them look more attractive, but this is not the whole story.
Research has suggested that UV rays provide a relaxing effect through an endorphin rush. Building on this, new research asks whether tanning might actually be addictive. In questioning 145 beachgoers in the US, researchers used models only slightly modified from those used to describe substance-related disorders like drug addiction.
The study's authors argue that thinking of tanning as a form of addiction may help to design better ways of discouraging excessive tanning.
ScienceDaily
The science of creativity
As Pablo Picasso once pointed out, all children are creative; the challenge is to remain creative into adulthood.
Unfortunately public education systems around the world seem designed to crush creativity in favour of rote learning and test passing. As the years pass a fear of being wrong takes over from our natural creative tendencies.
Unlike mathematics, languages or the humanities, we are rarely taught about creativity, despite its importance to our lives. Yet the information is out there, waiting to be used.
If you would like to be more creative at work and at home—and that has to be most of us—the insights in this ebook will be useful.
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