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Angry Faces Back Up Verbal Threats, Making Them Seem More Credible
We’ve all been on the receiving end of an angry glare, whether from a teacher, parent, boss, or significant other. These angry expressions seem to boost the effectiveness of threats without actual aggression, according to
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Distance From a Conflict May Promote Wiser Reasoning
If you're faced with a troubling personal dilemma, such as a cheating spouse, you may think about it more wisely if you consider it as an outside observer would, according to research forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. "These results are the first to demonstrate a new type of bias within ourselves when it comes to wise reasoning about an interpersonal relationship dilemma," says psychology researcher and study author Igor Grossmann of the University of Waterloo in Canada.
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Selfie Alert: Photos Often Don’t Reflect the Real You
Discovery News: Before you submit that headshot of yourself on LinkedIn or Facebook, you might want to consider — does it really show you in a good light? A new study finds that people can glean wildly inaccurate first impressions of people based on slight variations in how a person's face is presented. "The findings suggest that the images we post online can affect us in unexpected, and undesired, ways, subtly biasing other people's decisions," Alexander Todorov of Princeton University said in a press release. Read the whole story: Discovery News
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Diversity Makes You Smarter
New York Magazine: There are lots of good, bleeding-heart reasons to value diversity, to see it as a noble end in and of itself. But there are some very practical reasons to seek it out, too, as a new article in Perspective on Psychological Science points out. The evidence on group diversity has been mixed overall, the researchers point out.
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Why Desserts Are Irresistible
Forbes: It all comes down to willpower, right? Strength of purpose. Muster the resolve to skip dessert, and you have a shot at losing that spare tire hanging off your belly. Succumb to your temptations, however, and you are simply being weak. But is it just weakness that causes us to overeat? A study in Psychological Science suggests that our inability to resist that mouthwatering looking chocolate cake doesn’t arise simply because our willpower is weak but also because, after exhausting our willpower, the cake looks even more mouthwatering to us than it did before. Our ability to overcome temptation is reduced at the same time that the power of the temptation increases.
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Lines on the Road are Longer Than You Think
Most people believe that the dashed lines painted down the middle of a road are about 24 inches in length. And they’re off by about 8 feet. US federal guidelines dictate that the dashed lines separating traffic lanes or indicating where passing is allowed run 10 feet in length. But a recent study showed that people grossly underestimate the length of those lines, and thus could be misjudging distances as they drive. That means they could be driving too fast.
