Thursday, December 20, 2012

Friday Fun: My Favorites of 2012!

Hello again PYM readers! The end of 2012 marks the end of our second year as a psychology research blog (the first full year). I feel like a proud papa (Also, I will be an actual papa in March). With the close of our second year here at PYM, I'd like to highlight some of my favorite blog entries from the past 12 months.

"Twenty twelve" was a pretty good year for the blog, we retired one blogger (Anna) and added three others (Maya, Olga, and Kate). This has expanded our blog to six regular contributors at four universities across the USA! Everyone has been contributing really great stuff to the blog, and in what follows, I highlight some of my favorites.

If I had to pick my favorite post from Amie this year, I'd have to say it would be her post on three fascinating neurological disorders (The girl who feels no pain). In the post, Amie explains rare neurological conditions called hemineglect, prosopagnosia, and congenital pain insensitivity. If you want to know what those are, check out her post!

For Juli, I'd say my favorite had to be her post on making time stand still (appropriately titled: How to make time stand still). I think we can all relate to the experience of not having enough time to enjoy life. In the post, Juli describes how the experience of awe--feeling that we are in the presence of things grander than ourselves--might help us stop and smell the roses! Read more here!

One thing I really enjoy about this blog is that we're always trying to stay up-to-date with current events, and my favorite post from Olga is an example of this: Marriage equality has become a very important political and social issue over the last decade or so, and in this post (Marriage Equality) Olga discusses what is shifting our opinions on the topic. Read it here!

The Hunger Games is a great novel (yeah, I've read it... and loved it!) and also a multi-million dollar Hollywood blockbuster. This year Maya brought us two really excellent pieces about the film--one examining issues of race brought up by the film's casting (Rue and Racism) and one about the different psychological constructs that the film highlights (The Psychology of the Hunger Games). Check them out here and here!

Kate joined us later in the year and brought a fresh, Manhattan feel to the blog (that or, she lives in Manhattan)! My favorite post of hers had to be her really insightful piece discussing the potential reasons why people did not evacuate during Hurricane Sandy (Why don't people evacuate before storms?). It's definitely worth a look if you haven't read it!

In terms of my own posts, I'd have to say that two were my favorite to write (I can't speak for the reading side). In the first piece, it was fun to write down some of the challenges that I faced on the job market (twice!). That particular post is called "This is not advice about the academic job search." The second post that I most enjoyed writing involved how the mislabeled "love" hormone oxytocin explains behavior in my new favorite television show "The Walking Dead." Read the post here! What's not to love about an impending zombie apocalypse!

Lastly, it has been a lot of fun writing for PYM these last two years and I hope that everyone will have a wonderful 2013, and will continue to join us here, or on twitter @psychyourmind (or @mwkraus)! In the meantime, thanks again for reading!

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