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Spoiler alert: Why knowing the ending isn’t always a bad thing
National Post: Bruce Willis is dead. Edward Norton is Tyler Durden. Clint Eastwood pulls the plug: As annoying as it can be, finding out how films end may not be such a downer after all. According to research carried out at UC San Diego, spoilers may actually enhance our enjoyment. Nicholas Christenfeld, a professor of psychology at the California university, and his student Jonathan Leavitt recently tested the effect of spoilers using short stories, and their results will be published in the upcoming issue of Psychological Science.
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Four Year Olds Know That Being Right is Not Enough
As they grow, children learn a lot about the world from what other people tell them. Along the way, they have to figure out who is a reliable source of information. A new study, which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that when children reach around 4 years, they start noticing whether someone is actually knowledgeable or if they’re just getting the answers from someone else. Earlier studies have found that children as young as age three pay attention to whether someone is an accurate information source. If someone gives correct information, they’ll go back to that person for more answers.
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Gerard Depardieu reportedly urinates on a plane; are alcohol and the bladder a bad combo?
Los Angeles Times: In what could be turning into a nasty trend, French actor Gerard Depardieu reportedly urinated on the cabin floor of an airplane. A passenger interviewed on French radio said that Depardieu, who reportedly did the deed on a Paris-to-Dublin flight after being told by crew members to wait in his seat until after takeoff, appeared to have been drinking. This isn't the first time an alcohol-laced peeing incident has reportedly taken place on a plane, travel blogger Mary Forgione points out: Just this month, skier Sandy Vietze reportedly urinated on a young girl during a JetBlue flight.
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Smells From the Past: The Fulton Fish Market
Scientific American: It’s been a very hot summer here in New York City. And the city smells. It’s more than the smell of baking asphalt, exhaust fumes, and lack of deodorant—these smells are around all year. The heat has awakened older smells. Around midday, if you happen to stroll down by the South Street Seaport you can pick up on the smell of fish in the air. If you can manage to follow your nose—which really isn’t all that hard to do—it will lead you right to the old site of the Fulton Fish Market.
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Why are we so bad at predicting what will make us happy? (Pt.2)
Business Insider: I previously posted about why we're awful at predicting what will make us happy: we're lousy at remembering our predictions so we don't learn how to correct our errors. There are some others reasons: When you're emotional, you're a different person. That's not an excuse but there is science to back it up. Calm people were terrible at predicting how moral they would be once emotional: Can people accurately predict how they will act in a moral dilemma? Our research suggests that in some situations, they cannot, and that emotions play a pivotal role in this dissociation between behavior and forecasting.
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Research: Pain meds can affect emotional distress
ABC KGO-TV: Many of us take an over-the-counter medication to treat a headache or muscle pain, but new research says the active ingredient appears to have an effect on emotional distress as well. If you're suffering emotionally, the pain can almost feel physical, but can emotional pain be treated in the same way as physical pain? Researchers at the University of Florida measured brain activity in people who were experiencing social rejection -- even something as minor as an unreturned phone call. "Emotional pain hurts physically because, as research has shown, it targets the same neurological pathways," said clinical psychiatrist Clara Lora, MD.
