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Who Takes Risks?
It’s a common belief that women take fewer risks than men, and that adolescents always plunge in headlong without considering the consequences. But the reality of who takes risks when is actually a bit more complicated, according to the authors of a new paper which will be published in the August issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Adolescents can be as cool-headed as anyone, and in some realms, women take more risks than men. A lot of what psychologists know about risk-taking comes from lab studies where people are asked to choose between a guaranteed amount of money or a gamble for a larger amount.
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The Hazy Science of Hot Weather and Violence
Wired News: The link between violence and hot weather is so intuitive that it’s embedded in our language: Hotheads lose tempers that flare, anger simmers and comes to a boil, and eventually we cool down. So what does science have to say? Do tempers truly soar with temperature? The answer, appropriately enough for these triple-digit days, is hazy and hotly contested. To be sure, extensive literature exists on hot weather and violence, stretching from poorly controlled regional studies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries — oh, those hot-blooded southerners! — to more sophisticated modern analyses.
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Polling the Stars and Stripes
The Wall Street Journal: Showing American voters an image of the American flag while asking whom they plan to vote for shifts them toward the Republican Party, a new study finds—and the effects of that exposure are still evident eight months later. Researchers recruited some 200 potential voters in fall 2008, about a month before the presidential election, through social-networking sites. Participants were queried two times before the election; again a few days after the election; and yet again in July 2009. Read more: The Wall Street Journal
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The Saddest Movie in the World
Smithsonian.com: In 1979, director Franco Zeffirelli remade a 1931 Oscar-winning film called The Champ, about a washed-up boxer trying to mount a comeback in the ring. Zeffirelli’s version got tepid reviews. The Rotten Tomatoes website gives it only a 38 percent approval rating. But The Champ did succeed in launching the acting career of 9-year-old Ricky Schroder, who was cast as the son of the boxer. At the movie’s climax, the boxer, played by Jon Voight, dies in front of his young son. “Champ, wake up!” sobs an inconsolable T.J., played by Schroder. The performance would win him a Golden Globe Award. Read more: Smithsonian.com
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Does the guy with the Porsche really get the most dates?
Orlando Sentinel: Everyone assumes the racier the car, the racier the hormones. Now, researchers at the University of Minnesota have brought scientific precision to that age-old observation. To wit: Sexual signaling really works -- but not necessarily the way a young man intends when he buys the biggest TV or the flashiest car. "Men and women both know that that's the guy who wants casual sex," said Vladas Griskevicius, assistant marketing professor at the university. "But he isn't more desirable as a marriage partner. That's not the guy you want to marry." Read more: Orlando Sentinel
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Baby eyes take longer to process movement
Deccan Herald: Researchers at the University of California, Davis, found that while infants can perceive flicker or movement, they may not be able to identify the individual elements within a moving or changing scene as well as an adult. “Their visual experience of changes around them is definitely different from that of an adult,” study researcher Faraz Farzin was quoted as saying by Live Science. They found that the speed limit at which babies can recognise individual moment-to-moment changes is about half a second — about 10 times slower than adults, who can recognise rapid, individual changes that occur 50 to 70 milliseconds or slower. Read more: Deccan Herald
