Why do people love Apple products so much?
oducts with good design affirm your sense of self: Just as good looks bestow an unconscious “beauty premium” on people, high aesthetics bestows an unrecognized benefit on consumer goods. Specifically, choosing a product with good design affirms the consumer’s sense of self. Choice of a highly aesthetic product was compared with choice of products superior on other attributes including function, brand, and hedonics to show that only aesthetics influences a consumer’s personal values. In study 1 a prior self-affirming task…
1 min read
Why are Americans so much fatter than the French?
om restaurants to fast food to cookbooks, portions are significantly bigger in the US. Via The Science of Sin: The Psychology of the Seven Deadlies (and Why They Are So Good For You): Rozin sent some members of his research team, equipped with portable digital scales, on a mission to weigh portion sizes in restaurants in Paris and Philadelphia. These researchers would go into a local bistro or pizza joint, pull out their scales, and weigh a typical portion of…
2 minutes
Which countries most embody the seven deadly sins? Which US cities do?
a The Science of Sin: The Psychology of the Seven Deadlies (and Why They Are So Good For You): Geographer Thomas Vought, of Kansas State University, recently examined America’s sinscape, mapping the sinful peaks and vice-filled valleys of counties across the United States. Vought and his colleagues used statistics from different databases to compute sin indexes: violent crime stats to measure anger, prevalence rates of sexually transmitted infections to measure lust, and the number of fast-food chains per capita to…
2 minutes
What size diamond ring provides the most happiness?
e that is bigger than everyone else's. Via The Science of Sin: The Psychology of the Seven Deadlies (and Why They Are So Good For You): When Hsee and his colleagues examined predicted happiness ratings, they found that only relative diamond size mattered. Within each group, the person with the larger diamond was happier. Participants within groups could compare their diamonds with each other and as a result based their happiness on their relative standing within groups. However, there was…
1 min read
Is anger good for a relationship?
can be if you skip the blaming, yelling and screaming. Via The Science of Sin: The Psychology of the Seven Deadlies (and Why They Are So Good For You): Conventional wisdom has it that anger is destructive to relationships. But the empirical evidence tells a different story. In a study by Howard Kassinove of Hofstra University and his colleagues, when about 750 people were asked to think about recent anger episodes in close relationships, over half (55 percent) reported…
1 min read
Are couples that commute in the same direction happier?
s: Couples’ marital satisfaction can depend on whether they commute to work in the same or different directions. Two surveys, conducted in the United States and Hong Kong, showed that partners’ satisfaction with their relationship was greater when they traveled to work in the same direction than when they traveled in different directions. This was true regardless of whether the partners left for work at the same or different times. A controlled laboratory study eliminated alternative interpretations of the survey…
1 min read
5 Research-Backed Ways To Improve Your “March Madness” Bracket:
nce very soon everyone will be watching basketball and no one will be doing any work, I figured it would be good to look at the scientific research on sports so you can improve your bracket. Tip #1: Going with your gut only works for experts. Do you really know college basketball inside and out? If so, research says stop thinking and go with your instinct: ...for the experts who spent time not thinking about their predictions, there was a correlation…
4 minutes
What’s the secret to breaking bad habits forever?
u can't kill bad habits but you can replace them. A habit has three parts: the cue (what makes you crave a cigarette), the routine (smoking) and the reward (feeling relaxed.) The secret is keeping the same cue and reward but replacing the routine. (Replacing smoking with meditation, exercise or, as many inadvertently do, food.) You have to believe change is possible. The chances of success are greatly increased if you have a supportive group around you with the same…
2 minutes
