How to beat procrastination quickly:
llow @bakadesuyo Via Merlin Mann: My favorite tonic for procrastination—which I have mentioned in passing previously—is what I call a dash, which is simply a short burst of focused activity during which you force yourself to do nothing but work on the procrastinated item for a very short period of time—perhaps as little as just one minute. By breaking a few tiny pebbles off of your perceived monolith, you end up psyching yourself out of your stupor, as well as making much-needed progress…
1 min read
What’s the connection between sex and happiness?
llow @bakadesuyo This paper studies the empirical patterns in money, sex and happiness. Using 1990s data from the General Social Surveys of the United States, the paper shows that sexual activity enters strongly positively in happiness equations. We calculate that the median American has sexual intercourse 2-3 times a month. In our data, close to half of American women over the age of 40 report that they did not have sex in the previous year; the figure for men is…
5 minutes
Are conservative politicians better looking than liberals?
llow @bakadesuyo "We find that political candidates on the right are better looking in both municipal and parliamentary elections" Previous research has established that good-looking political candidates win more votes. We extend this line of research by examining differences between parties on the left and on the right of the political spectrum. Our study combines data on personal votes in real elections with a web survey in which 2,513 non-Finnish respondents evaluated the facial appearance of 1,357 Finnish political candidates.…
1 min read
Why do women apologize more than men? (It’s not because they’re more polite.)
men are more easily offended than men. In turn, they perceive more of their own behavior as improper, requiring an apology: Despite wide acceptance of the stereotype that women apologize more readily than men, there is little systematic evidence to support this stereotype or its supposed bases (e.g., men’s fragile egos). We designed two studies to examine whether gender differences in apology behavior exist and, if so, why. In Study 1, participants reported in daily diaries all offenses they committed…
1 min read
How to quickly and easily add meaning to your life:
llow @bakadesuyo Reflect on the different ways your life could have gone. Believing that the way things did work out was "meant to be" and appreciating the benefits of that journey both can add a deeper feeling of meaning to your life. Four experiments explored whether 2 uniquely human characteristics—counterfactual thinking (imagining alternatives to the past) and the fundamental drive to create meaning in life—are causally related. Rather than implying a random quality to life, the authors hypothesized and found…
1 min read
How would your life change if you suddenly got handed a lot of money?
llow @bakadesuyo Looking at inherited wealth and lottery winnings: Your health wouldn't change much, your mental health/quality-of-life would probably improve, you'd definitely drink a lot more and maybe smoke more: We examine how wealth shocks, in the form of inheritances, affect the mortality rates, health status and health behaviors of older adults, using data from eight waves of the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS). Our main finding is that bequests do not have substantial effects on health status, although some…
2 minutes
What predicts whether men and women will fall in love?
llow @bakadesuyo Men are more prone to falling in love if they overestimate women’s sexual interest and highly value looks. Women were more prone to falling in love if they had a stronger sex drive. A leading theory of romantic love is that it functions to make one feel committed to one’s beloved, as well as to signal this commitment to the beloved (Frank, 1988). Because women tend to be skeptical of men’s commitment, this view entails that men may…
1 min read
Do the Irish really drink that much?
e Irish do drink about twice as much alcohol per person as the rest of Europe but they also have twice as many abstainers. Half of Irish men binge drink at least once a week. The Irish have always had the reputation as a drinking culture. But even in a culture where drinking is relatively common, there exists a great deal of variation in actual drinking behavior. Compared to other European countries, the Irish simultaneously have high rates of abstention…
1 min read
