Is making someone remember something the key to convincing them?
e illusion of truth is traditionally described as the increase in perceived validity of statements when they are repeated (Hasher, Goldstein, & Toppino, 1977). However, subsequent work has demonstrated that the effect can arise due to the increased familiarity or fluency afforded by repetition and not necessarily to repetition per se. We examine the case of information retrieved from memory. Recently experienced information is expected to be subsequently reexperienced as more fluent and familiar than novel information (Jacoby, 1983; Jacoby…
2 minutes
What are the four types of creativity?
ere's a great post at What Makes Them Click that explains research detailing the 4 types of creativity. Above is a matrix showing how they relate and descriptions are below: "Thomas Edison" ...In order for deliberate, cognitive creativity to occur, you need to already have a body of knowledge about one or more particular topics. When you are being deliberatively and cognitively creative you are putting together existing information in new and novel ways. “a-ha” moments If you’ve ever had…
1 min read
Is there a connection between big feet and the size of… other parts of a man’s anatomy?
, there isn't: To determine whether "folk myths" regarding the relationships of penile size to body height and foot size have any basis in fact, 63 normally virilized men were studied. Height and stretched penile length were measured; shoe size was recorded and converted to foot length. Penile length was found to be statistically related to both body height and foot length, but with weak correlation coefficients. Height and foot size would not serve as practical estimators of penis length.…
1 min read
Are men or women more cooperative?
r the most part, men and women are equally cooperative but this study found a few small, though consistent differences. From the consistently great PsyBlog: So what Balliet et al. (2011) did was look across 50 years of research and hundreds of different studies to see what emerged. They broke studies down by situations and they found that overall, when you averaged everything out, there was little difference between men and women. As ever, though, the devil is in the…
1 min read
If religion makes people happy, why are so many dropping out?
ligion's ability to provide happiness is relative to where you live. In poor areas with fewer resources, the effects of religion are more profound. Where life is good, religious and nonreligious people are more equal in terms of happiness because the nonreligious have other ways to increase well-being. As we estimate here, 68% of human beings-4.6 billion people-would say that religion is important in their daily lives. Past studies have found that the religious, on average, have higher subjective well-being…
2 minutes
Will we be happier when we’re older?
's very likely. The LA Times has a long, excellent article on age and happiness. Here are some highlights: The explanation doesn't appear to be biological -- some chemical in the brain that mellows us just when all those plump neurons needed for thinking and memory are shriveling up. Rather, most scientists now think that experience and the mere passage of time gradually motivate people to approach life differently. The blazing-to-freezing range of emotions experienced by the young blends into…
2 minutes
Do teachers love or hate creative students?
bsp; It's a lot closer to hate. Hat tip: PsyBlog: Two studies were conducted to examine teachers' perceptions of creative students. Study 1 was based on earlier works that identified personality characteristics associated with creativity. The prototypicality of these characteristics as they applied to creative children was rated by college students. Elementary school teachers were then asked to rate their favorite and least favorite students based on these characteristics, There was a significant difference between the teachers' judgments of their…
1 min read
What is trust worth to a company?
tentially, an increase of 2.5% in annual revenue. From Tony Simons, Cornell University professor and author of The Integrity Dividend: Leading by the Power of Your Word: Hotels where employees strongly believed their managers followed through on promises and demonstrated the values they preached were substantially more profitable than those whose managers scored average or lower. So strong was the link, in fact, that a one-eighth point improvement in a hotel’s score on the five-point scale could be expected to…
1 min read
