Seeing the World Through Fresh Eyes

Even if we look at the bright side of things, the novelty wears off soon. Psychologists refer to this phenomenon as habituation.

Assoc. Prof. Clayton Critcher, with Minah Jung and Fausto Gonzalez from New York University, found that a relatively small intervention can let you see the world through fresh eyes. Their finding is rooted in a mechanism that Critcher and his colleagues call the “vicarious construal effect.” Their results were published this month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.