Are narcissists happier?
ung narcissists might be: Previous studies have noted that narcissists do, in some cases, experience benefits. The current study adds to this discussion by examining whether age might moderate the links between narcissism and a self-reported benefit (life satisfaction) and an observer-reported benefit (observer ratings of personality). In a sample of college students and their family members (N = 807), the authors demonstrate that narcissism positively correlates with life satisfaction for adolescents and emerging adults, but not for adult participants. In…
1 min read
Can others tell how sociable you are just by looking at the outside of your home?
evious research suggests that U.S. residents may use holiday decorations on their home's exterior to communicate friendliness and cohesiveness with neighbors. In the present research, we examine whether strangers (naive raters) can accurately identify the more friendly residents, and what aspects of the homes' exteriors contribute to their impressions. We also examine the possibility that residents who decorate for Christmas but who have few friends on the block may be using the decorations and other cues as a way of…
2 minutes
How is it that prayer helps you — even if you’re an atheist?
m not religious, so this is not an attempt to convert anyone. A few months ago I posted from an abstract showing that the act of prayer can be beneficial -- even if you don't believe. Why is that? A new study gives some good insight: Many individuals use prayer to manage negative emotions, but scholars know little about how prayer accomplishes this task. Using in-depth interview data from victims of intimate partner violence, I argue that prayer is an imaginary social support…
1 min read
Is there a way to trick yourself into exercising more?
o studies demonstrated that leading individuals to mentally reframe the time required for an exercise program (e.g., 2 hr per week) in terms of the equivalent daily amount (e.g., 17 min per day) reduced the perceived time commitment and increased people's willingness to try the program. Study 2 also identified a cognitive mechanism that mediated the effect of temporal framing on exercise intentions. Consistent with findings in other domains (Gourville, 1998), reframing exercise duration in daily units led participants to retrieve comparison activities…
1 min read
The Most Wonderful Way To Reduce Your Chance Of Getting Prostate Cancer
ve lots of orgasms: Context Sexual activity has been hypothesized to play a role in the development of prostate cancer, but epidemiological data are virtually limited to case-control studies, which may be prone to bias because recall among individuals with prostate cancer could be distorted as a consequence of prostate malignancy or ongoing therapy. Objective To examine the association between ejaculation frequency, which includes sexual intercourse, nocturnal emission, and masturbation and risk of prostate cancer. Design, Setting, and Participants Prospective study using follow-up…
2 minutes
How to easily increase your willpower:
st a little bit of practice every day: Self-control performance may be improved by the regular practice of small acts of self-control. Ninety-two adults’ self-control capacity was assessed using the stop signal paradigm before they started practicing self-control and again at the end of 2 weeks. Participants who practiced self-control by cutting back on sweets or squeezing a handgrip exhibited significant improvement in stop signal performance relative to those who practiced tasks that did not require self-control. Participants who did not practice…
1 min read
Can one product catch “cooties” from another?
a Science Daily: ...ordinary products that can evoke feelings of disgust in consumers include trash bags, cat litter, diapers, cigarettes, mayonnaise and shortening. "Because these products are so common, consumers are likely to experience feelings of disgust on routine shopping trips," Fitzsimons said. Fitzsimons and Morales sought to understand how "disgusting" products can affect consumers' opinions of other products in their grocery carts. They performed a series of experiments in which participants observed food products placed close to or touching…
2 minutes
Does a limit on how many you can buy make you buy more?
om Brian Wansink's excellent book Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think: A while back, I teamed up with two professor friends of mine—Steve Hoch and Bob Kent—to see if anchoring influences how much food we buy in grocery stores. We believed that grocery shoppers who saw numerical signs such as “Limit 12 Per Person” would buy much more than those who saw signs such as “No Limit Per Person.” To nail down the psychology behind this, we repeated…
1 min read
