a The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion: We found that people want dogs that fit their own moral matrices. Liberals want dogs that are gentle (i.e., that fit with the values of the Care foundation) and relate to their owners as equals (Fairness as equality). Conservatives, on the other hand, want dogs that are loyal (Loyalty) and obedient (Authority). Join 151,000 readers. Get a free weekly update via email here. Related posts: 5 things you didn't know…
ur profile tells people whether you have anxiety: Research on Facebook has suggested that individuals’ profiles are an accurate portrayal of the self and that it may be possible to identify traits such as narcissism and extraversion by viewing a Facebook profile. It has been suggested, however, that largely internal experiences, such as anxiety, should be less detectable in such contexts. In the current study, the authors tested if objective criteria (e.g., number of interests) on users’ profiles (N 1⁄4…
a The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement: The single strongest predictor of a person’s IQ is the IQ of his or her mother. Also interesting: However, once you get beyond the school environment, it’s not a very reliable predictor of performance. Controlling for other factors, people with high IQs do not have better relationships and better marriages. They are not better at raising their children. In a chapter of Handbook of Intelligence, Richard K. Wagner…
litical conservatism rose with blood alcohol content. These studies show that conservatism may be tied to low effort vs deliberate thinking: The authors test the hypothesis that low-effort thought promotes political conservatism. In Study 1, alcohol intoxication was measured among bar patrons; as blood alcohol level increased, so did political conservatism (controlling for sex, education, and political identification). In Study 2, participants under cognitive load reported more conservative attitudes than their no-load counterparts. In Study 3, time pressure increased participants’…
a The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World (Hat tip: Allfacebook): As the service’s engineers built more and more tools that could uncover such insights, Zuckerberg sometimes amused himself by conducting experiments. For instance, he concluded that by examining friend relationships and communications patterns he could determine with about 33 percent accuracy who a user was going to be in a relationship with a week from now. To deduce this he studied who…
mic their behavior. I've posted a number of times before on the power of mimicry to influence others (here, here, here.) This study is interesting because it demonstrates that mimicry doesn't work by only building a bond between the two involved, it makes the person who is mimicked feel better and act nicer to everyone. Recent studies have shown that mimicry occurs unintentionally and even among strangers. In the present studies, we investigated the consequences of this automatic phenomenon in…
s. John Tierney reports on a formula created by Garth Sundem, author of Brain Trust: 93 Top Scientists Reveal Lab-Tested Secrets to Surfing, Dating, Dieting, Gambling, Growing Man-Eating Plants, and More!. Garth, a self-professed über-geek, has crunched the numbers and discovered a better way to gauge the toxic effects of celebrity. Whereas the old equation measured fame by counting the millions of Google hits, the new equation uses a ratio of two other measures: the number of mentions in The…
ght ways to inspire yourself to get to the next level in life, with links to the research behind them: To have meaning in your life you need a story. You need to reflect on how things could have been and why they turned out the way they did. Seeing that things had a direction and a purpose provides meaning. Can't figure out what your long term goals are? Imagine your funeral. To make radical changes in your life you…
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