Do good luck charms work?
bsp; Yes. Good luck charms inspire confidence which improves performance on a variety of tasks. Via The Courage Quotient: How Science Can Make You Braver: The researchers found that by activating good luck beliefs, these objects were consistently able to boost people's self-confidence and that this up-tick in self-assurance in turn affected a wide range of performance. Lucky thinking, it turned out in this study, positively affected people's ability to solve puzzles and to remember the pictures depicted on thirty-six…
1 min read
What should you look for in a marriage partner?
w do you know who to marry? Should you just trust your feelings or pick the person who "looks good on paper"? Luckily, science has answers for us: 1) Find someone who you idealize and who idealizes you. (I've posted about the benefits delusion has on love before.) If you're already cynical about the person by the time you hit the altar, you're in trouble: This study examined the long-term consequences of idealization in marriage, using both daily diary and…
5 minutes
Why can it be so hard to be happy?
ere are a number of errors we consistently make when predicting what will make us happy. (I've embedded links below to explain them further.) Via Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth: There are several predictable thinking errors people commonly make that lead them to incorrectly predict their own future emotions in general, and future happiness in particular: Focusing on a single salient feature or period of time in a choice, rather than looking at the big picture. Overestimating the…
1 min read
Are deluded people more fun?
bsp; "Magical thinking" is when people irrationally see connections or cause-and-effect relationships where there are none. Luck, prayer and superstition are all examples of magical thinking. Turns out people who engage in magical thinking might be the life of the party. Via The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking: How Irrational Beliefs Keep Us Happy, Healthy, and Sane: Magical thinking is also important for letting loose and having a good time. Brugger finds a positive correlation between magical ideation and the…
2 minutes
10 ways mobile phones have changed our lives:
bsp; Overall, our phones make us happier. (There's even an app for that.) They may be making us more selfish, however. Our phones can fulfill our need for human contact, making us less inclined to go out of our way to help others. These devices can distract us so much we don't notice the world around us -- even if it contains unicycling clowns. (To be fair, people may actually like us better when we are distracted during a conversation.)…
2 minutes
5 tips for improving your startup company
bsp; THE COMPANY Know the seven things that make companies more productive and employees happier. Whether a company is ethical or unethical is determined by the people at the top, so set a good example. Employees are treated as partners, not underlings, at the best places to work. Hiring women and hiring them early is correlated with startup success. Make sure your team members get to leverage their signature strengths to increase "flow" in the office. Know how to make…
3 minutes
Are “Magnum” condoms really that much bigger or are they all about monetizing the male ego?
lliam Poundstone, author of "Priceless: the Myth of Fair Value and How to Take Advantage of It" notes this on his blog: Jim Daniels, vice-president of marketing for Trojan, confessed to the New York Times that Magnums are basically the same size, just a little wider in the middle. The NY Times article Poundstone cites says: For all the connotations, however, it turns out that Magnum is not so large. It is the same length as standard condoms, with the same circumference at its base,…
1 min read
Is there a shortcut to bonding with a romantic partner on a deeper level?
in 25K+ subscribers. No spam, ever. Enter your email here: From Sam Gosling's book, Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You: Arthur Aron, a psychologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is interested in how people form romantic relationships, and he’s come up with an ingenious way of taking men and women who have never met before and making them feel close to one another. Given that he has just an hour or so to create the…
3 minutes
