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A quick tip to improve your poker game:
ter losing a big hand, take a break or consciously make sure you don't play less cautiously: We find that experienced poker players typically change their style of play after winning or losing a big pot—most notably, playing less cautiously after a big loss, evidently hoping for lucky cards that will erase their loss. This finding is consistent with Kahneman and Tversky's (Kahneman, D., A. Tversky. 1979. Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica 47(2) 263–292) break-even hypothesis…
1 min read
Does a man’s smile mean the same thing as a woman’s smile?
woman's smile means warmth, a man's mean confidence: We present evidence that smiling is positively associated with positive affect in women and negatively associated with negative affect in men. In line with Vigil's model, we propose that, in women, smiling signals warmth (trustworthiness cues), which attracts fewer and more intimate relationships, whereas in men, smiling signals confidence and lack of self-doubt (capacity cues), which attracts numerous, less-intimate relationships. Source: Simine Vazire, Laura P. Naumann, Peter J. Rentfrow and Samuel…
1 min read
What should you do if you’re a mean drunk but don’t wanna get into fights?
t on Prozac: Background: The purpose of this study was to examine the role of the serotonin (5-HT) system in alcohol-related aggression. Methods: Specifically, we experimentally examined the effects of 5-HT augmentation on alcohol-related aggression in men (n = 56). After consuming either alcohol (mean blood alcohol concentration of 0.10%) or a placebo (no alcohol) drink, and taking either 20 mg of paroxetine (Paxil®) or a placebo pill, participants were provided the opportunity to administer electric shock to a (faux)…
1 min read
Does the weather affect how you invest?
ather variables, and sunshine in particular, are found to be strongly correlated with financial variables. I consider self-reported happiness as a channel through which sunshine affects financial variables. I examine the influence of happiness on risk-taking behavior by instrumenting individual happiness with regional sunshine, and I find that happy people appear to be more risk-averse in financial decisions, and accordingly choose safer investments. Happy people take more time for making decisions and have more self-control. Happy people also expect to…
1 min read
Can we tell where a criminal lives from where he commits crimes?
n we tell where an offender lives from where he or she commits crimes? Journey-to-crime estimation is a tool that uses crime locations to tell us where to search for a serial offender's home. In this paper, we test a new method: empirical Bayes journey-to-crime estimation. It differs from previous methods because it utilises an origin-destinationrule in addition to the distance decayrule that prior methods have used. In the new method, the profiler not only asks what distances did previous…
2 minutes
Low sperm count? There’s an easy fix for that: Porn.
evaluate the influence of sexual stimulation via sexually stimulating videotaped visual images (VIM) on sperm function, two semen samples were collected from each of 19 normozoospermic men via masturbation with VIM. Two additional samples were collected from each man via masturbation without VIM. The volume of seminal plasma, total sperm count, sperm motility, percentage of morphologically normal spermatozoa, outcome of hypo-osmotic swelling test and zona-free hamster oocyte sperm penetration assay, and markers of the secretory function of prostate were…
2 minutes
Does a woman’s attractiveness level change what she prioritizes in a man?
en looking for a long-term partner, it seems like women with very attractive bodies prefer men with money while women with less attractive bodies prefer good-looking men: Mate preferences are condition dependent (i.e., females in better biological condition might be more demanding with respect to fitness-relevant male traits). Such traits usually indicate male biological quality or ability to secure resources that could be invested in offspring. Here we study female preferences for male resources, commitment, attractiveness, good sense of humor,…
2 minutes
Is improving government as easy as giving politicians a pay raise?
o studies say it can help: Recent studies have emphasized the importance of the quality of politicians for good government and consequently economic performance. But if the quality of leadership matters, then understanding what motivates individuals to become politicians and perform competently in office becomes a central question. In this paper, we examine whether higher wages attract better quality politicians and improve political performance using exogenous variation in the salaries of local legislators across Brazil's municipal governments. The analysis exploits…
2 minutes
