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Experiences make you happier than ‘stuff,’ even before you buy
The Washington Post: Money can only buy you happiness if you spend it right. Previous research has shown that people value "experiences" like vacations and fancy meals more than they value material goods like cars and clothes. In a new study published in Psychological Science, researchers report that consumers actually enjoy waiting for experiences more, too. In the first part of the study, titled "Waiting for Merlot," 97 students were asked to imagine one type of purchase or another in their future and to rate their feelings as more like impatience or excitement.
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Of Myself I Sing
The New York Times: In April, Rebecca Makkai, a fiction writer, published a satirical piece on the blog for the literary magazine Ploughshares titled “Writers You Want to Punch in the Face(book).” In it, she depicted the Facebook posts of a fictional writer, Todd Manly-Krauss, who is “the world’s most irritating writer.” Her creation — illustrated by a photo of F. Scott Fitzgerald — is an insufferable and hilarious emblem of posturing machismo who boasts endlessly online about his professional successes (“I am exhausted but exhilarated from this whirlwind tour. Fifteen cities in twenty days!
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Rediscovering Our Mundane Moments Brings Us Unexpected Pleasure
We like to document the exciting and momentous occasions in our lives, but new research suggests there is value in capturing our more mundane, everyday experiences, which can bring us unexpected joy in the future. “We generally do not think about today’s ordinary moments as experiences that are worthy of being rediscovered in the future. However, our studies show that we are often wrong: What is ordinary now actually becomes more extraordinary in the future — and more extraordinary than we might expect,” explains psychological scientist and lead researcher Ting Zhang of Harvard Business School.
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‘Drawings may indicate later intelligence,’ according to new study
The Washington Post: Don’t throw away your kid’s stick figure drawings just yet. Researchers found a “moderate correlation” between drawing and intelligence, a link that “seemed to be influenced by genes,” according to a study by the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London. The test centered on identical and nonidentical twins, with 15,504 children participating. Each child was asked to draw a picture of a child and then given verbal and nonverbal intelligence tests. The children were first tested when they were 4 years old, and again 10 years later at age 14.
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Emergency Plane Landing Yields PTSD Clues
LiveScience: Interviews with the survivors of a 2001 emergency plane landing are helping researchers understand how certain memories may increase the risk for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a new study finds. The study's lead researcher has firsthand knowledge of the calamity. Margaret McKinnon, an associate professor of psychiatry at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, was on her honeymoon when Air Transat Flight 236, en route from Toronto to Lisbon, Portugal, ran out of fuel over the Atlantic. Read the whole story: LiveScience
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Tooth Fairy feels the pinch after overspending
USA Today: The Tooth Fairy is holding her purse strings a bit tighter. She left 8% less this year - or an average of $3.40 for every lost tooth she finds under a pillow - down from $3.70 in 2013, according to a survey from Visa out Thursday. Still, she's leaving more than she did in 2012 before tooth inflation rose 23% from 2012 to 2013. "She's had her wings clipped a little bit," says Jason Alderman, Visa's vice president of global financial education. "Even though it is down, this is the first real decline we've seen even during the recession because Tooth Fairy inflation has far exceeded the rate of traditional inflation." ...
