Is being a criminal hereditary?
idence is brought together to indicate that much criminality can be traced to environmental factors, but findings from family studies, twin studies, and adoption studies indicate that hereditary factors are also implicated in criminality. It is not a single genotype that provides the thrust toward crime, but a variety of phenotypical characteristics that are heritable in more or lesser degree. Such findings shall lead us to rethink our legal responsibility regarding criminals, their proper classification and treatment, and their responsibility…
1 min read
What color should men wear to be more attractive to women?
Red: In many nonhuman species of vertebrates, females are attracted to red on male conspecifics. Red is also a signal of male status in many nonhuman vertebrate species, and females show a mating preference for high-status males. These red–attraction and red–status links have been found even when red is displayed on males artificially. In the present research, we document parallels between human and nonhuman females' response to male red. Specifically, in a series of 7 experiments we demonstrate that women…
2 minutes
Men Really Do Want Sex More Than Women
s, guys are hornier but the study also reveals many surprising tidbits which I'll post after the abstract: The sex drive refers to the strength of sexual motivation. Across many different studies and measures, men have been shown to have more frequent and more intense sexual desires than women, as reflected in spontaneous thoughts about sex, frequency and variety of sexual fantasies, desired frequency of intercourse, desired number of partners, masturbation, liking for various sexual practices, willingness to forego sex,…
4 minutes
Does gossip make us less selfish?
a Science Daily: In every condition, people acted selfishly to some degree -- most people kept more than an equal share for themselves. But when their actions were public and the chance for gossip was high, people became substantially less selfish. When people knew that their selfishness would be on display -- and very likely to be talked about -- they acted most generously to others. "When the threat of gossip exists, group members can expect that they will be…
1 min read
A Quick, Easy Trick For Getting People To Like You
socially optimistic. Expect that people will like you and they probably will. Via Psyblog: So this provides evidence that the acceptance prophecy holds true. In this experiment people who expected to be accepted did act more warmly towards a stranger and consequently they were perceived as more likeable. And: Social optimists, of course, are in the happy position of expecting to be accepted and finding that, generally speaking, they are. Social pessimists, though, face the dark side of what…
1 min read
Can photos reduce pain?
s. Photos of loved ones can reduce pain and in some situations might be better than having the real person present: These findings confirm the notion that simply viewing a loved one’s picture can have pain-attenuating effects, and they fit with social psychological research showing that being primed with a social construct is enough to activate associated mental representations and to bias behavior (Ferguson & Bargh, 2004). Thus, seeing photographs of loved ones may prime associated mental representations of being loved and supported, which may…
1 min read
Reading to your kids is great but here’s why you’re doing it all wrong:
en reading to your kids, call attention to the words. It helps build their reading skills. Parents are encouraged to read to their children, and they frequently engage in shared book reading on the belief that the experience will foster their children's literacy development. In this article, the authors draw on a body of published studies to argue that shared book reading often does not lead to the benefits expected of it. The studies show that during parent-child shared reading,…
1 min read
Is there a way to make it easier to forgive someone?
rgiveness involves forgoing destructive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and, instead, engaging in constructive responses following an interpersonal offense. The current pilot study compared two expressive writing tasks with a control writing task to determine whether writing about an interpersonal offense promotes forgiveness of the offender. Participants who empathized with the offender and identified benefits of forgiveness experienced decreases in avoidance and increases in perspective-taking. Participants who wrote about their thoughts and feelings or about daily events did not experience such…
1 min read
