Who can you trust to keep a secret?
bsp; "60 percent of people confessed to sharing even their best friends’ secrets with a third party." Even professional therapists share details. And never tell anyone "Just between you and me..." Via Jesse Bering's excellent The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life: And let’s face it— even for adults, keeping a secret is hard work. You may personally be very good at keeping secrets, but consider that, in one study, 60 percent of people…
1 min read
Is there a connection between misery and religion?
bsp; Among US states, suffering and belief in god are highly correlated, even after controlling for income and education. Via Jesse Bering's excellent The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life: In another clever study, Gray and Wegner created a U.S. state-by-state “suffering index” and found a positive correlation between a state’s relative misery (compared to the rest of the country) and its population’s belief in God. To create an objective measure of such relative…
2 minutes
Why do people commit suicide?
icide is not about objective life circumstances -- if it was, the rich would almost never do it and most of the third world would. It's about falling short of standards. Via Jesse Bering's excellent book, Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?: And Other Reflections on Being Human: Most people who kill themselves actually lived better-than-average lives. Suicide rates are higher in nations with higher standards of living than in less prosperous nations; higher in U.S. states with a…
2 minutes
Can groups like the Amish survive in today’s modern world?
bsp; Survive? They're thriving. Via Jesse Bering's excellent book, Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?: And Other Reflections on Being Human: What you may not know is that the Amish population has been swelling since the sect’s arrival in the New World. With growth rates hovering between 4 and 6 percent per year, their numbers double every twenty years or so. In 2008 they numbered 231,000; the year before, it was 218,000. Having children is a heavenly blessing, but…
1 min read
What’s it like to turn 50?
unds awesome. Via Sciencemag.org: Stone's team found that global well-being declines from the 20s to age 50, then increases steadily. Happiness and enjoyment also increase after age 50. Although sadness is fairly flat throughout the age groups, most negative feelings decline with age. Worry stays level until about 50, then drops. Anger falls steadily from the 20s; stress peaks in the 20s, starts a decline, then plummets after age 50. The patterns are almost identical for men and women, although…
2 minutes
Do we experience life in 3 second chunks?
bsp; Hugs, goodbye waves, infants' bouts of babbling, breathing, nervous system functions... all average around three seconds. Multiple studies among humans and other species point to 3 seconds as one of the most fundamental units of life and what defines our feeling of "now." Via Sciencemag.org: Ever wondered how long a hug lasts? The quick answer is about 3 seconds, according to a new study of the post-competition embraces of Olympic athletes. But the long answer is more profound. A…
2 minutes
Why are girls often so cruel to each other?
bsp; Female gossip-based attacks are largely a function of competition for men. Via Jesse Bering's excellent book, Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?: And Other Reflections on Being Human: Although most researchers acknowledge the speculative nature of evolutionary arguments in this area, social aggression among reproductively viable females is usually interpreted as a form of mate competition. Hess and Hagen, for example, suggest that the sex differences uncovered in their study would likely have been even more pronounced in…
2 minutes
Should you talk about your big goals or keep them a secret?
bsp; Keep them secret. Talking about big goals rewards yourself ahead of time and makes you less likely to follow through. Via Daniel Coyle's excellent book The Little Book of Talent: 52 Tips for Improving Your Skills: While it’s natural and oh so tempting to want to announce big goals, it’s smarter to keep them to yourself. In a 2009 experiment at New York University, 163 subjects were given a difficult work project and forty-five minutes to spend on it.…
1 min read
