Why are we so terrible at predicting how we’ll react to things?
en we're in a "cold" (unemotional) state our brains frequently underestimate how much emotion will affect us (a "hot" state.) By experimentally manipulating test subject's fear, anxiety or other feelings scientists could make people's predictions more or less accurate: People exhibit an “illusion of courage” when predicting their own behavior in embarrassing situations. In three experiments, participants overestimated their own willingness to engage in embarrassing public performances in exchange for money when those performances were psychologically distant: Hypothetical or in…
1 min read
Would it be great to live someplace where everyone had Ferraris and Porsches?
ybe not -- when the number of luxury cars in a neighborhood goes up, people's happiness with their income goes down: Traditional tools of welfare economics identify the envy-related welfare loss from conspicuous consumption only under very strong assumptions. Measured income and life satisfaction offers an alternative for estimating such consumption externalities. The approach is developed in the context of luxury car consumption (Ferraris and Porsches) in Switzerland. Results from household panel data and fixed effects panel regressions suggest that…
1 min read
Can you lose weight just by writing?
men who wrote about their most important values lost weight while non-writers gained a few pounds: Is losing weight as simple as doing a 15-minute writing exercise? In a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, women who wrote about their most important values, like close relationships, music, or religion, lost more weight over the next few months than women who did not have that experience. And: The women came back between one…
1 min read
What’s more satisfying: sex or masturbation?
x wins by a landslide: Research indicates that prolactin increases following orgasm are involved in a feedback loop that serves to decrease arousal through inhibitory central dopaminergic and probably peripheral processes. The magnitude of post-orgasmic prolactin increase is thus a neurohormonal index of sexual satiety. Using data from three studies of men and women engaging in masturbation or penile-vaginal intercourse to orgasm in the laboratory, we report that for both sexes (adjusted for prolactin changes in a non-sexual control condition),…
1 min read
Is it the worst characteristics of narcissists that you’re most attracted to?
e quality we find most attractive in narcissists when we first meet them is their level of exploitativeness and entitlement: On the basis of a realistic behavioral approach, the authors showed that narcissists are popular at zero acquaintance and aimed to explain why this is the case. In Study 1, a group of psychology freshmen (N = 73) judged each other on the basis of brief self-introductions using a large round-robin design (2,628 dyads). Three main findings were revealed: First,…
1 min read
How can metaphors dramatically change your life?
anford reviews a study showing how a simple change in wording can dramatically affect how we respond to the same information: Psychology Assistant Professor Lera Boroditsky and doctoral candidate Paul Thibodeau have shown that people will likely support an increase in police forces and jailing of offenders if crime is described as a “beast” preying on a community. But if people are told crime is a “virus” infecting a city, they are more inclined to treat the problem with social…
2 minutes
10 ways to supercharge your New Year’s resolutions:
posts that will help you follow through with those New Year's resolutions: How to make your New Year’s resolutions more successful What really motivates us? Is it better to start off with ambitious goals or conservative goals? How can you easily start good habits? How can we resist our bad habits? How do we get rid of our bad habits? What's the best way to fight bad habits? Does fantasizing give you the motivation to achieve your goals? Can…
1 min read
Do people get more or less attractive after the first time you have sex with them?
men are more likely to experience increased feelings of love and commitment after first-time sex. The more sex partners a man has had in the past, the more likely he is to perceive a woman as less attractive after first-time sex: This article develops the Affective Ship Hypothesis, which suggests that women experience positive affective shifts following first-time intercourse as a means to facilitate a longer-term, more committed relationship. The hypothesis predicts a negative affective shift in men who pursue…
1 min read
