Can a quick glance tell you if a couple is happy?
can with older couples. Happy marriage partners grow to look more similar as the years pass. Via Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To: Couples often start to look alike as they grow older, because one consequence of mimicking a partner’s facial expressions after years of cohabitation is that the repeated use of the same facial muscles means that faces start to look more similar. If one partner smiles in…
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Is your sense of smell used to manipulate you?
a Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy: ...as Pam Scholder Ellen, a Georgia State University marketing professor, puts it, “All of our other senses, you think before you respond, but with scent, your brain responds before you think.” Smell can lead you to buy more and pay more: In fact, the scent of vanilla is so appealing, one experiment carried out in a local clothing store in the Pacific Northwest showed that when “feminine scents” such as vanilla…
2 minutes
How profitable is bank robbery?
t very. Average heist in the US nets less than $5,000 and that's often divided among multiple thieves. Via Ars Technica: The basic problem is the average haul from a bank job: for the three-year period, it was only £20,330.50 (~$31,613). And it gets worse, as the average robbery involved 1.6 thieves. So the authors conclude, "The return on an average bank robbery is, frankly, rubbish. It is not unimaginable wealth. It is a very modest £12,706.60 per person per…
1 min read
Is it more effective to punish the bad or reward the good?
lice in Canada started writing "Positive Tickets" -- rewarding good behavior. "...youth recidivism was reduced from 60% to 8%. Overall crime was reduced by 40%. Youth crime was cut in half. And it cost one-tenth of the traditional judicial system." Via Harvard Business Review: For years, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) detachment in Richmond, Canada ran like any other law enforcement bureaucracy and experienced similar results: recidivism or reoffending rates ran at around 60%, and they were experiencing spiraling…
2 minutes
Must read — Top ten new posts from the past month:
at 10 things should you do every day to improve your life? 10 ways science explains why James Bond is so irresistible to women 10 things science can teach us about being sexy as hell What 10 things should you do every *week* to improve your life? The last damn thing you'll ever need to read about influence, persuasion and negotiation 10 steps to getting better at absolutely everything 8 things you didn't know about orgasms and sexual satisfaction The…
1 min read
Do warnings make us *more* likely to break the rules?
..cigarette warning labels not only failed to deter smoking... it appeared they actually encouraged smokers to light up." Via Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy: In short, the fMRI results showed that cigarette warning labels not only failed to deter smoking, but by activating the nucleus accumbens, it appeared they actually encouraged smokers to light up. We couldn’t help but conclude that those same cigarette warning labels intended to curb smoking, reduce cancer, and save lives had instead…
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Is Apple a company or a religion?
r brains respond the same way to both religion and iconic brands (like Apple.) Via Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy: DR. CALVERT analyzed the fMRI data, she found that strong brands brought about greater activity in many areas of the brain involved in memory, emotion, decision-making, and meaning than weak brands did. This didn’t surprise me terribly much. After all, it makes sense that an image of BP Oil would inspire less emotional engagement than a shiny…
1 min read
How much can others learn about you from your credit card?
e data miners at credit card companies can learn a great deal from your transactions, pulling non-obvious correlations from their enormous datasets. Via Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy: It’s amazing what a sophisticated data miner can learn from a credit card. In 2002, J. P. Martin, an executive at Canadian Tire (which, in addition to tires and car accessories, sells electronics, sporting goods, and kitchen appliances), began analyzing the data gleaned from…
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