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Comfort Food: A Yummy Weapon Against Loneliness
Live Science: Be it macaroni and cheese, chicken soup, kim chi or even the odd salad, comfort foods really do comfort us by fighting feelings of loneliness, new research shows. "The idea is that throughout our lives, comfort foods are foods we eat time and time again in the presence of close others," said lead researcher Jordan Troisi, a doctoral candidate at the University of Buffalo. "Later in life, reminders of those foods or eating those foods again brings up that association and essentially serves as a reminder of those others with whom the foods were originally consumed." Read the whole story: Live Science
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When Properties Seem Priced to Spur a Bidding War
The New York Times: Despite the housing market slump, homes in some areas of the country are still selling above listing prices. In the Noe Valley area of San Francisco, where I live, for instance, a number of homes that seemed to be priced low ended up receiving multiple bids and selling for thousands of dollars over the asking price. Academic papers on the topic of negotiation help explain why this phenomenon occurs and why those in the market for a home may want to stay away from properties offered at below-market prices, where multiple bids are being accepted. Read the whole story: The New York Times
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Chicken Soup For the Soul: Comfort Food Fights Loneliness
U.S. News & World Report: Mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, meatloaf…they may be bad for your arteries, but according to an upcoming study in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, they’re good for your heart and emotions. The study focuses on “comfort food” and how it makes people feel. “For me personally, food has always played a big role in my family,” says Jordan Troisi, a graduate student at the University of Buffalo, and lead author on the study. The study came out of the research program of his co-author Shira Gabriel, which has looked at social surrogates—non-human things that make people feel like they belong.
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Study: Regrets? Women have a few, particularly in romance
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: When you look at the couch and the stomach-scratching blob lying there, do you occasionally wish you’d committed to sharing your life with someone else? When it comes to regrets — particularly among women — romance is the most common source of that nagging anxiety, according to a new study by a professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Some 370 adults across the United States — ranging in age from 20 to 80 — were asked in a telephone survey to list their biggest regrets, and the most frequently mentioned issue had to do with romance, said the study’s author, Neil Roese, a professor of marketing at Northwestern.
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What’s Your Biggest Regret?
The New York Times: We all have regrets, but new research suggests the most common regret among American adults involves a lost romantic opportunity. Researchers at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign collected data from 370 adults in the United States during a telephone survey. They asked respondents to describe one memorable regret, explaining what it was, how it happened and whether their regret stemmed from something they did or didn’t do. The most common regret involved romance, with nearly one in five respondents telling a story of a missed love connection.
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The Brain Is Not an Explanation
Brain scans pinpoint how chocoholics are hooked. This headline appeared in The Guardian a couple years ago above a science story that began: “Chocoholics really do have chocolate on the brain.” The story went on to describe a study that used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the brains of chocoholics and non-cravers. The study found increased activity in the pleasure centers of the chocoholics’ brains, and the Guardian report concluded: “There may be some truth in calling the love of chocolate an addiction in some people.” Really? Is that a fair conclusion to draw from the fMRI data in this study, reported in the European Journal of Neuroscience?
