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The palate’s Prozac
Brisbane Times: When the recession hit (the first time around), you could hear the words buzzing from the mobile phone of every restaurant consultant around the world: "It's time for comfort food." But behind the cottage pies and creamy mash lies a question: what does "comfort food" really mean? What about it actually comforts us? Let's look at some big-time comfort foods: cheese on toast, boiled eggs and soldiers, apple crumble, chocolate cake. When people talk about comfort food, the obvious explanation is that it's all about nostalgia and missing Mum's cooking. But, really, it takes more than this to create the rush of sensations that make us feel safe, calm and cared for.
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Companies With Wide-Faced CEOs Have Been Shown To Perform Better Financially
Business Insider: I’m not sure what the appropriate reaction is to this study, so I’ll let you decide. New research led by Elaine Wong at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has found that CEOs with wider faces tend to lead their companies to better financial performance than CEOs whose faces are skinnier. Can this be true? And if so, why? The researchers say that broader faces, in men, are a result of more testosterone, and note that male hockey players with broader faces have been shown to spend more time in the penalty box for fighting, which is again supposedly linked to testosterone.
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Does Money Make You Unhappy?
Wired: David Brooks has an excellent column on the diminishing returns of luxury living: Often, as we spend more on something, what we gain in privacy and elegance we lose in spontaneous sociability. I once visited a university that had a large, lavishly financed Hillel House to serve as a Jewish center on campus. But the students told me they preferred the Chabad House nearby, which was run by the orthodox Lubavitchers. At the Chabad house, the sofas were tattered and the rooms cramped, but, the students said, it was more haimish. Restaurants and bars can exist on either side of the Haimish Line.
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Measure of success: Study shows width of CEO’s face can predict company’s financial performance
Daily Mail: If you are measuring indications of how well a company will perform, look no further than the shape of the CEO’s face. New research shows male corporate leaders with wider faces, such as Herb Kelleher, former CEO of Southwest Airlines, and Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric, demonstrate better financial performances than their peers with more narrow faces, such as former Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld. The study, led by Elaine Wong at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, analysed photos of 55 male CEOs of Fortune 500 businesses.
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Coffee Break? Walk in the Park? Why Unwinding Is Hard
The Wall Street Journal: A college student deep into studying for a big exam might do well to give his brain a break. Just what he does during that break will determine how helpful that pause will be, a growing body of research shows. A stroll in the park could do wonders, for instance, while downing coffee could leave him just as stressed and depleted as before the break. And, sometimes, forcing oneself to simply power through mental fatigue can be more effective than pausing.
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Assigning Wikipedia Instead of Term Papers
Positive Psychology News Daily: Are you a professor teaching a class on psychology — or perhaps another discipline that relies on psychology, such as management science? Are you putting the final tweaks on your course syllabus? Then consider this: Wikipedia has been shown to be the most important source of science including psychological science for the public. However, a lot of topics in psychology are presented poorly or have not been presented at all.
