I argue here that urbanization has played a particularly active role

giving kids rewards for their prosocial behavior may actually undermine kindness. One possible explanation for these somewhat counterintuitive findings is that, in order for children to grow up seeing themselves as kind and giving, it is important for them to feel that they do good because they want to, not because others expect them to.

warm, sensitive parenting for three year olds predicts greater focused concentration in the children one year later—which in turn predicts greater sympathy at ages six and seven. Vagal tone in the kids at three years also predicts sympathy three and four years later. As was the case for parenting style, the Vagal tone effect was largely related to the children’s concentration skills as four years olds.  Together, these data suggest that warm, sensitive, authoritative parenting may support skills like managing emotions and focusing attention, and that children with higher Vagal tone are more likely to have these skills, which in turn paves the way for sympathy for other peoples’ suffering.

In the Oliners’ study of Germans who helped rescue Jews during the Nazi Holocaust, one of the strongest predictors of this inspiring behavior was the individual’s memory of growing up in a family that prioritized compassion and altruism.

Nancy Eisenberg, Richard Fabes, and Martin Hoffman have found that parents who use induction and reasoning raise children who are better adjusted and more likely to help their peers. This style of parenting seems to nurture the basic tools of compassion: an appreciation of others’ suffering and a desire to remedy that suffering.

First, children securely attached to their parents, compared to insecurely attached children, tend to be sympathetic to their peers as early as age three and a half, according to the research of Everett Waters, Judith Wippman, and Alan Sroufe. In contrast, researchers Mary Main and Carol George found that abusive parents who resort to physical violence have less empathetic children.

Evolutionary biologists like Frans de Waal have shown that we are social animals who have naturally evolved to care for each other, just like our primate cousins. And psychologists have revealed that we are primed for empathy by strong attachment relationships in the first two years of life.  But empathy doesn’t stop developing in childhood. We can nurture its growth throughout our lives—and we can use it as a radical force for social transformation.

Advice to software development interns

Much research in social production has focused primarily on theoretical development, or, when it has focused on empirical details, deals with them at an abstract level.

Along these lines, they go on to propose the development of a “social curriculum” with programs and activities that “enhance social inclusion and connection.” For ideas and techniques to make that happen, please see Greater Good’s education channel!

extension

Homeopathy, on the other hand, uses highly diluted and succussed doses of natural substances - usually plants and minerals.  It is this dilution that makes homeopathy safer than allopathy and herbalism, and the succussion that allows remedies to retain their effectiveness, despite their high dilution.  This ‘minimum dose’ concept is one of the key principles of homeopathy, also developed in the late 1800's.

Allopathy (pharmaceutical medicine) uses extracts of active ingredients, often sourced from the same plants used by herbalists and homeopaths, that are then reproduced synthetically and highly concentrated in laboratories for use as drugs.  This process is then patented, and was developed in the late 1800's. 

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Developing code for an FPGA is actually describing how the above pieces are configured and interconnected.

Hack days: April 25-26, 2015

Reticulating Splines

community development should be part of your open source project’s regular duties

an objective set for the Sprint that can be met through the implementation of Product Backlog. It provides guidance to the Development Team on why it is building the Increment. It is created during the Sprint Planning meeting. The Sprint Goal gives the Development Team some flexibility regarding the functionality implemented within the Sprint. The selected Product Backlog items deliver one coherent function, which can be the Sprint Goal. The Sprint Goal can be any other coherence that causes the Development Team to work together rather than on separate initiatives.

Kirkham, N. Z. (2009). Altogether now: Learning through multiple sources. In S. P. Johnson (Ed.), Neoconstructivism: The new science of cognitive development. New York: Oxford University Press

We are by nature most tenacious of what we have imbibed in our infant years, as the flavor with which you scent vessels when new remains in them, nor can the colors of wool, for which its plain whiteness has been exchanged, be effaced. Those very habits, which are of a more objectionable nature, adhere with the greater tenacity, for good ones are easily changed for the worse, but when will you change bad ones into good? Let the child not be accustomed, therefore, even while he is yet an infant, to phraseology which must be unlearned.

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