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Sweet Revenge: Gustatory Experience and Vengeful Action
In case you missed it the cameras were rolling! Jens H. Hellmann from University of Münster, Germany presented his research at the APS 24th Annual Convention in Chicago, Illinois, USA in English and German. English German: The present experiment examined whether "revenge tastes sweet": We found that the evaluation of a vengeful act was more positive when participants had a sweet (vs. neutral) taste in their mouths. Furthermore, this relatively more positive evaluation did not emerge when the motive for the evaluated action was not revenge. Jens H. Hellmann University of Münster, Germany Deborah F. Thoben Helmut-Schmidt-University Hamburg, Germany
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Reminders of Mortality Increase Concern for Environmental Legacy
Reminders of our own mortality may encourage us to keep future generations in mind as we make decisions that have environmental impact.
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Fear of Pain Can Lead to Suffering
People go to great lengths to avoid pain. And that avoidance, ironically, may be a cause of chronic pain. When a person is injured, they begin to associate the injury with the activity that caused it, and they will avoid that activity – and other activities. In the short term, avoidance may promote healing, but over time, fear of pain may actually initiate chronic pain, leading to disability and depression. Psychological scientists in this symposium shared many approaches for investigating this surprising model of pain behavior. One technique was based on classical conditioning, in which volunteers were given a shock in response to a particular movement they performed.
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Thinking About Choice Diminishes Concern for Wealth Inequality
Against the backdrop of a worldwide recession, wealth inequality has become a prominent theme in discussions about politics and the economy. In some ways, Americans seem to advocate a more equal distribution of wealth. In surveys and public opinion polls, for example, the majority of Americans supports having a strong middle class. But, when it comes to specific policies, they often vote against measures that would narrow the gap between those with the highest and lowest incomes.
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Class discrimination harms health of poor
United Press International: Discrimination and the stigma attached to poverty may contribute to physiologic changes associated with poorer health, U.S. researchers suggest. Lead author Dr. Thomas Fuller-Rowell of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar, said although the link between poverty and poor health has been long known, this study considered the impact of class discrimination. The study involved 252 17-year-olds from upstate New York enrolled in a long-running Cornell University study on rural poverty. All were white but the study did not look at the effect of race.
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You Know You Want One: Personal Robots Are Coming, But Not Ready For You Yet
NPR: Meet Jake. At 500 pounds, he stands 4 feet 4 four inches tall, with a spine that stretches another foot. He has white urethane skin, a flat head sporting an array of camera lenses, and a laser scanner in his throat. And he may be coming to a home near you. Jake is a PR2, which stands for "personal robot," and the brainchild of Willow Garage, a robotics company in Menlo Park, Calif. Founded in 2006, the company is considered one of the most exciting, influential players in the world of personal robotics. Willow Garage has given away 11 of these PR2 robots — each worth $400,000 — to research institutions.
