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Good Manners May Be a Pact to Reduce Physical Effort
U.S. News & World Report (HealthDay): Not only is holding the door open for others a nice gesture, it's also a nod to the physical effort of those involved, researchers report. Their study, to be published in Psychological Science, combined two seemingly unrelated fields -- altruism and motor control. "The way etiquette has been viewed by Emily Post -- that you're being proper by following social codes -- is undoubtedly part of it," David A. Rosenbaum, of Pennsylvania State University, said in a journal news release. "Our insight is there is another contributor: the mental representation of other people's physical effort." Read the whole story: U.S. News & World Report
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Women more likely than men to have a ‘love’ regret: NU study
Chicago Tribune: If asked to name something we regret in our lives, most of us would mention a "love" regret, especially the women among us, a recent study out of Northwestern University shows. When asked, about 44 percent of women and 19 percent of men said they regretted something related to romance, according to the study by the Kellogg School of Management in Evanston. Neal Roese is one of the study's authors and a professor of marketing at the school. He said regrets women mentioned in the survey of 370 adults ages 19 to 103 included "the one that got away" regrets, as well as regrets that they had never entered into a particular relationship.
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New Research From Psychological Science
On the Strength of Connections Between Localist Mental Modules as a Source of Frequency-of-Occurrence Effects Derek Besner, Sarah Moroz, and Shannon O’Malley How do people become familiar with items and events that appear frequently in their lives? To test potential mechanisms, the reaction times to numerical stimuli presented in either Arabic numerals (the more frequent form in which numbers are presented) or words (less frequent) were compared in different tasks. There was a difference in the reaction times between the two formats for a parity judgment task (in which participants indicated whether a number was odd or even) but not for a test in which participants read each stimulus aloud.
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Your health is where your head’s at
The Independent Online: Can your personality really reveal anything about your health? It sounds like the kind of psychobabble you would find in a teen magazine - along with how to choose the man, job and dress to best match your character type. But, in fact, there is evidence to suggest that certain characteristics may influence your health. “Personalities are a result of both genes and the environment,” explains Dr Martin Hagger, a health psychologist at the University of Nottingham and Curtin University, Australia.
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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
