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Should a man be happier than his wife?:
t if he wants to stay married: This paper asks whether the gap in subjective happiness between spouses matters per se, i.e. whether it predicts divorce. We use three panel databases to explore this question. Controlling for the level of life satisfaction of spouses, we find that a higher satisfaction gap, even in the first year of marriage, increases the likelihood of a future separation. We interpret this as the effect of comparisons of well-being between spouses, i.e. aversion to…
2 minutes
Why does popcorn cost so much at the movies?
cause it's smarter to raise popcorn prices than ticket prices: Prices for goods such as blades for razors, ink for printers and concessions at movies are often set well above cost. This paper empirically analyzes concession sales data from a chain of Spanish theaters to demonstrate that high prices on concessions reflect a profitable price discrimination strategy often referred to as “metering price discrimination.” Concessions are found to be purchased in greater amounts by customers that place greater value on…
1 min read
How do you convince ambivalent people?:
le on the information: Quantity trumps quality in this instance because ambivalent individuals are likely to accept messages regardless of their source’s perceived reliability, shows Johar’s research, conducted with Martin Zemborain of Austral University in Argentina. Because ambivalent individuals have conflicting positive and negative views, they are seeking a way to resolve that discord and solidify their opinions. This makes them open to persuasion from a variety of sources, reputable and otherwise. Johar and Zemborain found that people with strong…
1 min read
When is the best time to threaten someone?:
don't necessarily mean to wave a clenched fist, but in any sort of negotiation -- and any conflict is a negotiation. In a study of bill collectors threats worked best when the person on the other side was nonresponsive and wasn't being negative. If they were being negative, it was best to encourage them: We hypothesise that the effectiveness of threats and encouragements is contingent on the intended recipient's level of negative affect, as evidenced by his/her negative affective…
2 minutes
Here’s why you want to know if sex offenders live near you:
ey offend close to home: This study examines the crime patterns of 76 New Zealand serial sexual offenders in order to determine the extent to which offenders display locational consistency in their choice of crime locations. More specifically, the hypothesis was that there would be intraseries consistency in the distances travelled (spatial consistency) and the characteristics of the crime sites selected (environmental consistency) by serial sexual offenders.For spatial consistency to be tested, the distances travelled from home to offend and…
1 min read
Is there a deeper connection between heat and being “hot-headed”?:
s: Anger is frequently referred to in terms of heat-related metaphors (e.g., hot-headed). The metaphoric representation perspective contends that such metaphors are not simply a poetic means of expressing anger but actually reflect the manner in which the concept of anger is cognitively represented. Drawing upon this perspective, the present studies examined the idea that the cognitive representation of anger is systematically related to the cognitive representation of heat. A total of 7 studies, involving 438 participants, provided support for…
1 min read
Is there an optimal time for persuading older adults?:
s. Unlike younger people, older adults are sharper in the morning and less so in the afternoon. So "easy-to-process" messaging should go in the afternoon and "difficult-to-process", more complex arguments in the morning. Past research demonstrates that the majority of older adults (60 years and older) perform resource-demanding tasks better in the morning than in the afternoon or evening. The authors ask whether this time-of-day effect also impacts persuasion processes performed under relatively high involvement. The data show that the…
1 min read
You know what can have a big impact on which college you go to? The weather.
, I'm not kidding. Cloudiness gives a nearly 10% edge to whatever college you visit: Does current utility bias predictions of future utility for high stakes decisions? Here I provide field evidence consistent with such Projection Bias in one of life's most thought-about decisions: college enrolment. After arguing and documenting with survey evidence that cloudiness increases the appeal of academic activities, I analyse the enrolment decisions of 1,284 prospective students who visited a university known for its academic strengths and…
1 min read
