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Do attractive people have more kids?
ah, but much of the effect is due less to attractiveness, per se, and more to not being so ugly that nobody wants to marry you: Physical attractiveness has been associated with mating behavior, but its role in reproductive success of contemporary humans has received surprisingly little attention. In the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (1244 women, 997 men born between 1937 and 1940), we examined whether attractiveness assessed from photographs taken at age ∼18 years predicted the number of biological children…
1 min read
How to quickly and easily improve performance on tests
iming does it again... Before the test, write about a successful personal experience: This research sought to develop an intervention (targeting positive emotions and thoughts) as a mechanism for reducing test anxiety and raising confidence and performance in a sample of college students. Participants were randomly assigned to a positive thought task or a control task. Those in the positive-thought condition, who were assigned to write about successful personal experiences, derived several benefits, when compared with control participants who wrote…
1 min read
Can people distinguish pâté from dog food?
..subjects were not better than random at correctly identifying the dog food." Considering the similarity of its ingredients, canned dog food could be a suitable and inexpensive substitute for pâté or processed blended meat products such as Spam or liverwurst. However, the social stigma associated with the human consumption of pet food makes an unbiased comparison challenging. To prevent bias, Newman's Own dog food was prepared with a food processor to have the texture and appearance of a liver mousse.…
1 min read
How to quickly and easily reduce heartache:
ick stuff in a box. No, I'm not kidding: This research investigates whether the physical act of enclosing an emotionally laden stimulus can help alleviate the associated negative emotions. Four experiments found support for this claim. Using recalled negative experiences such as regretted past-decisions and unsatisfied strong desires, we showed in Experiments 1A and 1B that emotional negativity was reduced for participants who placed a written recollection of such experiences inside an envelope. However, enclosing a stimulus unrelated to the…
1 min read
Are ads with plus-size models effective?
. In fact, there's no "safe choice" here: Increasingly common ads and catalogues featuring plus-size models are unlikely to work on their intended customers. That’s according to a new study by researchers at ASU, the University of Cologne in Germany and Erasmus University in the Netherlands, which demonstrates a link between model sizes in advertisements and the self-esteem of consumers looking at the ads. “We believe it is unlikely that many brands will gain market share by using heavy models…
2 minutes
Should you get wasted the night before a big exam?
re, why not? Despite what I recently posted about drinking negatively affecting performance in college, this study says that binge drinking the night before a test doesn't negatively affect grades: In a first-of-its kind controlled experiment, researchers from the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) and Brown University have found that surprisingly, binge drinking the night before a test does not impact college students' test performance – although it can affect their moods, attention and reaction times. The study,…
2 minutes
Should you be nice when negotiating?
pends. If the other guy has few options, being angry can be useful: We hypothesized that anger expressions increase expressers’ ability to claim value in negotiations, but only when the recipients of these expressions have poor alternatives. This effect occurs because anger expression communicates toughness, and only recipients who have poor alternatives are affected by the toughness of their counterpart. In Experiment 1, participants read a scenario about a negotiator who either was angry or not. In Experiment 2, dyads…
2 minutes
Does eye position betray the numbers we have in mind?
s. Gamblers and people who lie about their age, take note: In the study, participants were asked to state a series of random numbers. By measuring their vertical and horizontal eye position, researchers were able to predict with reliable confidence the next chosen number -- before it was spoken. Specifically, a leftward and downward change in eye position announced that the next number would be smaller than the last. Correspondingly, if the eyes changed position to the right and upward,…
2 minutes
