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Climate beliefs change with the weather
ABC News.au: US researchers have found people's climate beliefs blow hot and cold depending upon the weather of the day. When people think the day's temperature is hotter than usual they are more likely to believe in and feel concerned about global warming. Likewise, when the day's temperature is lower than usual, people's belief in global warming plummets. These are the findings of a new study from Columbia University's Centre for Research on Environmental Decisions published in Psychological Science. Read the whole story: ABC.news.au
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Some People’s Climate Beliefs Shift With Weather
Results from three studies show that people who thought the current day was warmer than usual were more likely to believe in and feel concern about global warming than those who thought the day was unusually cold.
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Sneaky Stars and Stripes
Believe it or not, basking in the glow of the grand old flag may shift our political beliefs. A study in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science found that exposure to the American flag led to a shift toward Republican beliefs, attitudes, and voting behavior, for both Republican and Democratic participants.
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The Weather Changes Our Opinions About Climate Change: Study
Fast Company: Any time the weather is extreme, people on either side of the climate change debate will use it to prove the other side is wrong. If it's cold in summer, climate change nonbelievers will ask where the global warming is. If it's hot in winter, climate change activists will ask people to just step outside to see the changes we have wrought on the environment.
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Date Comedy
The New Yorker: Tad Friend writes this week about Anna Faris. His article is called “Funny Like a Guy,” and it discusses whether Faris’s style of humor can succeed in a movie industry that caters to adolescent males. There is no doubt that there is a gender gap in humor—whether in Hollywood, standup, or cartooning. In his book “Laughter,” the psychologist Robert Provine demonstrates that, in conversation, women are much more likely to laugh at what men say than the other way around. Provine analyzed “laugh episodes” in recorded conversation. He also looked at thousands of personal ads, and saw that both sexes were looking for partners with a sense of humor.
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The Funny Business of Laughter
Focus: Chortling, sniggering, guffawing, tittering – it has so many names and yet it is one of the most mysterious aspects of human behaviour. Emma Bayley investigates a very peculiar habit. If an alien were to land on our planet and take a stroll among a crowd of earthlings, it would notice that the low hum of speech was regularly interjected by much louder exhalations and that these outbreaths were chopped into ‘ha-ha’ fragments. It might wonder what purpose this strange habit served. If we ask ourselves what triggers a good chortle, the obvious answer is that it is a response to something we find funny.
