2 posts tagged “news clip”

M pointed me to an interesting article about the Wall Street fiasco, how it happened, but also who saw the signs and bet against Wall Street. The article is written by the author of Liar's Poker, a book about Wall Street in the 1980's, and this article talks about how the author sees the current crash as the end of that order. 

The New York Times reports some studies focusing on marital spats and heart risk, not necessarily knock down fights but from the details of the study, how couples deal with disagreements. Here are the findings:

Women who kept quiet during a fight were 4 times more likely than women who spoke their minds during a fight to die during the 10 year study period. Whether the woman reported being in a happy marriage or an unhappy marriage didn’t change her risk.

The way the couple interacted during a fight was as important a heart risk factor as whether they smoked or had high cholesterol.

For women, whether a husband’s arguing style was warm or hostile had the biggest effect on her heart health. Examples from a fight over finances: “Did you pass elementary school math?” versus “Bless you, you are not so good with the checkbook, but you’re good at other things.” The latter form of argument showed a lower risk of heart disease for the woman.

The level of warmth or hostility had no effect on a man’s heart health. What did effect the man's risk of heart disease was whether the argument was a battle of control over something. It did not matter which side was trying to assert control in the argument. 

The studies also indicated that whether the participants reported being in happy or unhappy marriages didn't have an effect on their health but what did matter was the way they handled arguments. Of course, people in unhappy marriages might lie about being unhappy, and to be honest, I'm not always sure people are good at identifying when they are unhappy.

The findings seem sensible: it's better to express feelings than bottle them up and it's better to find a less damaging way to express a criticism. But it was a nice little reminder to do these things better.