Can a simple strategy help you say “no” to temptation?
a Eurekalert: When facing temptation, can a simple change of language make a difference? According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, consumers who respond to temptation with the words "I don't" versus "I can't" are more able to resist. And: "This insight is based on the notion that saying "I can't" to temptation inherently signals deprivation and the loss from giving up something desirable," the authors write. "For instance, when faced with a tempting slice of…
1 min read
Who’s the best at spotting deception?
ople who are self-aware and single women. Via Brain Trust: 93 Top Scientists Reveal Lab-Tested Secrets to Surfing, Dating, Dieting, Gambling, Growing Man-Eating Plants, and More!: First, Keenan found that people who are more self-aware are better at spotting deception in others. (Note: this does not necessarily mean that by becoming more self-aware, you would increase your lie-detection skills. Beware the jabberwocky of correlation and causation.) But check this out: Keenan also found that single women are much better than…
1 min read
Do we pick friends who are similar to us or do we become more similar to our friends?
u seek out friends who are similar to you. Similarity only increases marginally post-friendship. Via Brain Trust: 93 Top Scientists Reveal Lab-Tested Secrets to Surfing, Dating, Dieting, Gambling, Growing Man-Eating Plants, and More!: “There’s this old question in sociology asking why your opinions and interests are similar to those of your friends,” says MacArthur genius and Cornell computer scientist John Kleinberg. “Do your friends influence you to become more like them, or do you seek out like-minded friends?” Kleinberg answered…
1 min read
Is happiness in what you do or how you do it?
estigious occupations are more likely to be seen as meaningful. Despite this, research shows that seeing any job as having meaning confers many benefits, including increased happiness. Via Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment: Working as a medical doctor, one could argue, lends itself more to meaning than work as a sec ondhand car dealer; similarly, Wrzesniewski's research illustrates that employees who are higher in the organizational hierarchy are more likely to experience their work as…
2 minutes
Can just one additional mile make your car’s value plunge?
the same way that $1.99 is more appealing than $2, cars drop disproportionately in value as the odometer approaches round numbers like 100,000 miles. Via Brain Trust: 93 Top Scientists Reveal Lab-Tested Secrets to Surfing, Dating, Dieting, Gambling, Growing Man-Eating Plants, and More!: This also means that every time your car’s odometer gains a digit in the hundreds spot, it loses twenty dollars in resale value. Devin Pope showed that a car with 50,799 miles is worth twenty dollars…
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What do people do with big inheritances? Save or spend?
out half gets saved and half is spent or lost investing: Almost $4 trillion dollars of wealth is currently held by families with a life expectancy of less than 10 years. When that wealth is inherited, will it be retained or spent quickly? Results from the NLSY79, a longitudinal survey covering people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s suggest roughly half of all money inherited is saved and the other half spent or lost investing. These spending and saving decisions are…
1 min read
Is the love of money the root of all evil?
bsp; Money may or may not bring happiness but the love of money makes people miserable: Via Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment: Aspiring for financial success is an important aspect of capitalist cultures. Three studies examine the hypothesis that values and expectancies for wealth and money are negatively associated with adjustment and well-being when they are more central to an individual than other self-relevant values and expectancies. Studies 1 and 2 use 2 methods to…
1 min read
Are attractive people less shallow?
ey may very well be. Via the always interesting Vaughan Bell at Mind Hacks: I’ve just found a disappointing study from the European Journal of Psychology that found that physically attractive people are more likely to be psychologically balanced and accepting than the rest of us. And: They suggest that it could be due to a self-fulfilling prophecy effect. Previous research has shown that good looking people are stereotyped as being more confident, warm, dominant, stable and socially skilled, among…
1 min read
