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How to quickly and easily add meaning to your life:
flect 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 that counterfactual…
1 min read
For a healthy relationship, should cohabiting couples have more or less sex than married couples?
ior research found that lower sexual frequency and satisfaction were associated with higher rates of divorce, but little research had examined the role of sexual activity in the dissolution of cohabiting unions. We drew upon social exchange theory to hypothesize why sexual frequency is more important in cohabitation: (a) cohabitors' lower costs of finding sexual alternatives, (b) cohabitors' lower barriers to ending the relationship in the form of union-specific economic and noneconomic capital, and (c) cohabitors' higher expectations for sexual…
1 min read
What predicts cheating in a relationship?
udy was among young people but I'd be surprised if these weren't true across the board: Using a multi-perspective vignette design, we explored predictors of young peoples' (N=119) propensity to engage in unfaithful activities while dating. Demographic measures, a datding investment model, and measures of functional and dysfunctional impulsivity were used to predict inclination to engage in each of two extradyadic activities (kissing and sexual activity). The results of moderated multiple regression analyses revealed that a respondent's number of sexual…
2 minutes
Can minor differences in income make a big difference in people’s lives?
show how small initial wealth differences between low skilled black and white workers can generate large differences in their labour-market outcomes. This even occurs in the absence of a taste for discrimination against blacks or exogenous differences in the distance to jobs. Because of the initial wealth difference, blacks cannot afford cars while whites can. Car ownership allows whites to reach more jobs per unit of time and this gives them a better bargaining position. As a result, in…
1 min read
Why do some people always think others are out to get them?
rceiving oneself as having powerful enemies, although superficially disagreeable, may serve an important psychological function. On the basis of E. Becker’s (1969) existential theorizing, the authors argue that people attribute exaggerated influence to enemies as a means of compensating for perceptions of reduced control over their environment. In Study 1, individuals dispositionally low in perceived control responded to a reminder of external hazards by attributing more influence to a personal enemy. In Study 2, a situational threat to control over…
1 min read
Does losing make winning that much better?
ior studies have observed that the attractiveness of playing a simple gamble (7/36 to win $9; otherwise win nothing) is greatly enhanced by introducing a small loss (7/36 win $9; otherwise lose 5¢). The present studies tested and confirmed an explanation of this finding based on the concept of evaluability and the affect heuristic. Evaluators of the "no-loss" gamble lack a precise feeling for how good $9 is, hence give it little weight in their judgment. In the second gamble,…
1 min read
Do women try to sabotage more successful women?
o studies tested the hypothesis that females penalize women who succeed in male gender-typed jobs to salvage their own self-views regarding competence. The authors proposed that women are motivated to penalize successful women (i.e., characterize them as unlikable and interpersonally hostile) to minimize the self-evaluative consequences of social comparison with a highly successful female target. Results supported the hypothesis. Whereas both male and female participants penalized successful women, blocking this penalization reduced female—but not male—participants' self-ratings of competence (Study 1).…
1 min read
Who wins in a price war?
though retail price wars have received much business press and some research attention, it is unclear how they affect consumer purchase behavior. This article studies an unprecedented price war in Dutch grocery retailing that started in fall 2003, initiated by the market leader to halt its sliding market share. The authors investigate the short- and long-term effects of the price war on store visits, on spending, and on the sensitivity of these decisions to weekly prices and price image. They…
2 minutes
