Category: Miscellaneous Awesome

Live The Good Life

How to quickly and easily get much stronger:

nd a good placebo: This study used false information about a placebo (milk-sugar tablet) to induce expectancies regarding force production. Forty-two college students were assigned to a placebo/placebo (PP), placebo/no-placebo (PN), or control group, and underwent baseline testing and two trials assessing one-repetition maximum (1 RM) strength on a bench press and seated leg press. The PP and PN groups improved significantly compared to the control at Trial 1 for the bench press (p ≤ .01) and leg press (p…


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Make Better Decisions

Do firm muscles equal firm willpower?

ross five studies, we show that firming one’s muscles can help firm willpower and firmed willpower mediates people’s ability to withstand immediate pain, overcome tempting food, consume unpleasant medicines, and attend to immediately disturbing but essential information, provided doing so is seen as providing long term benefits. We draw on theories of embodied cognition to explain our results, and we add to that literature by showing for a first time that our bodies can help firm willpower and facilitate self-regulation…


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Master The Workplace

What really makes your hairstylist perform at their best?

examined the relations for hairstylists between trust and routine and creative performance and the extent to which these service employees trust their supervisors and customers. We also investigated whether psychological safety mediated these trust-performance relations. Results suggested that trust in supervisors and trust in customers made significant, independent, and joint contributions to employees' creative performance; however, only trust in supervisors was related to routine performance. Moreover, psychological safety mediated the trust in supervisor-performance links, but did not mediate the…


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Become A Great Leader

Do security cameras make us act kinder?

is study addresses the effects of security cameras on prosocial behavior. Results from previous studies indicate that the presence of others can trigger helping behavior, arising from the need for approval of others. Extending these findings, the authors propose that security cameras can likewise trigger such approval-seeking behaviors by implying the presence of a watchful eye. Because people vary in the extent to which they strive for others' approval, it was expected that the effects of security cameras on prosocial…


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Be Sexier

A Woman’s Level Of Sexual Satisfaction Can Predict Her Mental And Physical Health

ructural equation modelling was used to assess the strengths of the links between sexual satisfaction and self-reported (a) relationship well-being, (b) mental health, and (c) physical health for women in same-sex (i.e., homosexual, n = 114) versus mixed-sex (i.e., heterosexual, n = 208) relationships. Participants came from a large-scale Internet study. Sexual satisfaction was found to be an extremely strong predictor of relational well-being, a strong predictor of mental health, and a weak to moderately strong predictor of physical health.…


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Miscellaneous Awesome

Should hope your country does not host the Winter Olympic Games?

is article analyses stock market reactions in countries competing to hold the Olympic Games around the time of the winning bid announcements, using both regular and abnormal returns. We analyse the announcement effects of winning and losing for both Summer and Winter games, beginning with 1996 games announced in 1990, up until the announcement of the 2012 games in 2006. We find significantly negative stock market reaction for winners of the bid to host Winter Games and insignificant positive reaction…


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Make Better Decisions

Would you know a psychopath if you saw one?

is study is the first to demonstrate that features of psychopathy can be reliably and validly detected by lay raters from “thin slices” (i.e., small samples) of behavior. Brief excerpts (5 s, 10 s, and 20 s) from interviews with 96 maximum-security inmates were presented in video or audio form or in both modalities combined. Forty raters used these excerpts to complete assessments of overall psychopathy and its Factor 1 and Factor 2 components, various personality disorders, violence proneness, and…


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Have Great Relationships

Can psychopaths assess vulnerability just by watching someone walk?

is study examines whether psychopathic traits in a nonreferred (and presumably nonpsychopathic) sample could enhance the accuracy of perceptions of victim vulnerability. In a previous study, the interpersonal and affective component of psychopathy was associated with increased accuracy in assessing vulnerability in dyadic conversations, and Grayson and Stein (1981) established that vulnerability could be assessed by observing targets walking. The purpose of this study was to determine whether individuals scoring higher on psychopathic traits would be better able to judge…


1 min read

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