Do you underestimate the power of touching?
a the New York Times: Studies show touching has the power to encourage, reduce pain and communicate: Students who received a supportive touch on the back or arm from a teacher were nearly twice as likely to volunteer in class as those who did not, studies have found. A sympathetic touch from a doctor leaves people with the impression that the visit lasted twice as long, compared with estimates from people who were untouched. Research by Tiffany Field of the…
2 minutes
How can you fool people into thinking you like that awful gift they gave you?
th 75% of people being able to correctly identify whether or not a recipient liked the gift they received, how can we better fool people (and spare their feelings)? Make eye contact. Smile with your mouth and eyes, not just your mouth. Don't put the gift aside. Lift it like a trophy and show it off. From Humintell: What do you say when you receive a gift you are not too fond of? Eye contact, or lack thereof, is one…
2 minutes
Can computers teach us everything we need to know about cooperation?
ve posted before about Robert Axelrod's research on cooperation; computers were assigned different strategies in the famous prisoner's dilemma and for thousands upon thousands of rounds they faced each other to see which method led to the most success. The best strategy by far turned out to be one we're all familiar with: tit-for-tat. In chapter six of his book, The Evolution of Cooperation, Axelrod explains how we can translate the findings of these computer tournaments into advice that's useful…
3 minutes
Is 5-to-1 the golden ratio for both work and romantic relationships?
om Richard Conniff's interesting book, The Ape in the Corner Office: How to Make Friends, Win Fights and Work Smarter by Understanding Human Nature: It turned out that the fifteen high-performance teams averaged 5.6 positive interactions for every negative one. The nineteen low-performance teams racked up a positive/negative ratio of just .363. That is, they had about three negative interactions for every positive one... And: What's even scarier is that Losada's five-to-one ratio also appears to be essential when you…
1 min read
Sex On The First Date: What predicts who’s okay with it?
k them: "Do you like the taste of beer?" Via OkCupid: Among all our casual topics, whether someone likes the taste of beer is the single best predictor of if he or she has sex on the first date... No matter their gender or orientation, beer-lovers are 60% more likely to be okay with sleeping with someone they've just met. Sadly, this is the only question with a meaningful correlation for women. Join over 190,000 readers. Get a free weekly…
1 min read
Are there easy ways to improve your next vacation?
ristian Jarrett has a long interesting piece on vacations in The Psychologist. There are a number of interesting highlights, including the optimal length of a trip: ...people on mid-length holidays of between three to six days tended to report more positive mood than those on shorter or longer trips. ‘Possibly a two- to six-day holiday trip is long enough to enjoy (unlike a two-day trip),’ Nawijn surmised, ‘but short enough to minimise arguments with partner, family or friends.’ There's often…
3 minutes
Who can most accurately tell when the opposite sex is interested in them: men or women?
ndsome men. Via MSNBC: The more attractive the woman was to the guy, the more likely he was to overestimate her interest in him, researchers found. And it turns out, the less attractive men (who believed they were better looking than the women rated them) were more likely to think beautiful women were hot for them. But the more attractive guys tended to have a more realistic assessment. And the women? Perilloux and her coauthors found that women underestimated men’s sexual interest.…
1 min read
Does guilting people really work?
minding people of their transgressions causes them to improve their behavior: People’s desires to see themselves as moral actors can contribute to their striving for and achievement of a sense of self-completeness. The authors use self-completion theory to predict (and show) that recalling one’s own (im)moral behavior leads to compensatory rather than consistent moral action as a way of completing the moral self. In three studies, people who recalled their immoral behavior reported greater participation in moral activities (Study 1),…
1 min read
