Welcome to the Weekly Medius PsychNews. Every week, we select five thought-provoking Psychology articles from the hundreds published in journals and other media. Psychology Drives Everything. 
 

• The counterintuitive tricks to asking better questions, according to Harvard research:  Having the ability to ask a question appears to be a uniquely human trait, one that saves us time and energy as we gather resources and information. It also allows us to develop empathy for others and create bonds of trust, even among strangers. Indeed, people who ask more questions are seen as more likable. Full article.

• On Deception: Understanding Lies in One Simple Step:
  Before I turned my attention to research and writing on single people and single life, I spent the first few decades of my professional life studying the psychology of lying and detecting lies. I’ve probably written hundreds of thousands of words on the topic. Here, I want to boil down one of the most important things I’ve learned into just four words. Full article.

• 10 Important Psychological Concepts People Don't Understand
  Here’s an interesting thing about psychology: For the most part, everyone, regardless of their educational background, feels like an expert in the field. This is not true of, say, biochemistry, geochemical engineering, or astrophysics.  Full article.

• Are You Blowing Things Up in Your Head? Four techniques to gain perspective: If you are someone prone to anxiety, depression or anger then it is likely that everyday occurrences can seem like catastrophes. Someone says something you don’t like and it seems awful. You can’t stand it. You are driving in traffic and it is all backed up and you are leaning on the horn because—you can’t stand being stuck in traffic. Someone treats you unfairly and you tell all your friends what a horrible person she is—and you can’t stand that either.  Full article.

• The Power of Listening in Helping People Change:
  Giving performance feedback is one of the most common ways managers help their subordinates learn and improve. Yet, research revealed that feedback could actually hurt performance: More than 20 years ago, one of us (Kluger) analyzed 607 experiments on feedback effectiveness and found that feedback caused performance to decline in 38% of cases. This happened with both positive and negative feedback, mostly when the feedback threatened how people saw themselves. Full article.