Articles specific to social cognitions (thinking) that occur everyday

I know I know, I can’t help myself. I was reading a few articles again, and I found several that I thought might add to your understanding or give a different perspective of some concepts that were in chapter two, The Self in a Social World. One of those concepts was “possible selves” (images of what we dream of or dread becoming in the future). I thought this article was interesting because it is about some research that was done on how we actually view our ‘future selves’ as different people. On a neurological level even!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/25/business/another-theory-on-why-bad-habits-are-hard-to-break-shortcuts.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1348868847-VdNWtOIY/qX9sFFalvtfOg

Chapter three discussed mental heuristics (a thinking strategy that enables quick, efficient judgments). I found this little about a book that came out fairly recently (2010) about how we can override these mental shortcuts.

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/brain-and-behavior/articles/2010/09/20/does-trusting-your-instincts-make-sense

Chapter three also discussed self-handicapping (protecting one's self-image with behaviors that create a handy excuse for later failure). Here’s a little article about it.

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/01/science/new-research-illuminates-self-defeating-behavior.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

And this one on the “what-the-hell effect” (what I consider one of the biggest handy excuses for failure)

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/changepower/201111/beware-the-what-the-hell-effect-especially-holidays