What makes for a good pick-up line?
bsp; Mentally tired people are less receptive to clever pick-up lines. Innocuous pick-up lines work better in these instances. Direct pickup lines weren't affected by mental exhaustion. (Hat tip: BPS) The success of a relationship initiation strategy, such as a pick-up line or opening gambit, may depend on the target’s state receptivity. Self-control is a limited resource that, when depleted, can potentially influence interpersonal interactions. The present research examines whether ego depletion can influence receptivity to various types of opening…
1 min read
Is the “20 second rule” the key to being your best?
in 25K+ subscribers. No spam, ever. Enter your email here: Look at the good habits you want to develop and see if there's a way you can make them easier to begin by 20 seconds. Want to stop a bad habit? Increase the time it takes to initiate it by 20 seconds. Harvard happiness expert Shawn Achor recounts a story of how just moving his guitar to the living room increased how often he practiced: Via The Happiness Advantage:…
2 minutes
What predicts college grades better than IQ score?
bsp; Being an introvert. "At the university level, introversion predicts academic performance better than cognitive ability." Via Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking: Extroverts get better grades than introverts during elementary school, but introverts outperform extroverts in high school and college. At the university level, introversion predicts academic performance better than cognitive ability. One study tested 141 college students’ knowledge of twenty different subjects, from art to astronomy to statistics, and found that introverts knew…
1 min read
What’s the best way to give feedback?
bsp; Why is it so hard to give feedback without people getting angry? It's a status game. Via Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long: The source of the difficulty here lies in who comes up with the solution. Paul’s suggestion makes him look smarter, and Eric less smart. This impacts their relative status, which Eric is likely to fight against. The better Paul’s answer is, the more likely Eric might…
2 minutes
How do frequent emails and texts affect productivity?
reduces mental ability by an average of about 10 IQ points. For men, it's about three times the effect of smoking marijuana. Via Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long: A study done at the University of London found that constant emailing and text-messaging reduces mental capability by an average of ten points on an IQ test. It was five points for women, and fifteen points for men. This effect…
2 minutes
How common are women with Barbie’s proportions? How about men with Ken’s?
bsp; Barbie: 1 in 100,000 women. Kevin: 1 in 50 men. Via Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History: Barbie’s proportions are naturally found in one out of one hundred thousand women, according to researchers from the University of South Australia; Ken’s bod, by contrast, is found in one in fifty men. Join 25K+ readers. Get a free weekly update via email here. Related posts: How different are the bodies of female movie stars, pornstars, healthy women, and average women? 10 things science…
1 min read
What do the best computer programmers have in common?
bsp; Years of experience, salary and time spent completing the exercise turned out to mean nothing. Oddly, programmers from the same companies all performed at about the same level. Why? The most important factor was the comforts afforded to them by their work environment: "... top performers overwhelmingly worked for companies that gave their workers the most privacy, personal space, control over their physical environments, and freedom from interruption." Via Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop…
2 minutes
Is there really such thing as “runner’s high” or are they just exhausted and delirious?
's real. The human body produces it's own opium-like compounds to fight pain ("endogenous opioids") and runners "who reported the highest levels of euphoria after running also had the highest levels of opioid release." Via The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good: The researchers found that this long run was associated with researchers found that this long run was associated with increased opioid release in the…
1 min read
