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Relationship Satisfaction Linked with Changing Use of Contraception
Women’s sexual satisfaction in long-term heterosexual relationships may be influenced by changes in hormonal contraceptive use, research from the University of Stirling shows. The study, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, was carried out by researchers from the universities of Stirling, Glasgow, Newcastle, Northumbria and Charles University in Prague. The team looked at a sample of 365 couples, and investigated how satisfaction levels — in both sexual and non-sexual aspects of long-term relationships — were influenced by women’s current and historical use of hormonal contraception.
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You Are What You Eat
The Economist: Many psychological studies conducted over the past two decades suggest Westerners have a more individualistic, analytic and abstract mental life than do East Asians. Several hypotheses have been put forward to explain this. One, that modernisation promotes individualism, falls at the first hurdle: Japan, an ultra-modern country whose people have retained a collective outlook. A second, that a higher prevalence of infectious disease in a place makes contact with strangers more dangerous, and causes groups to turn inward, is hardly better. Europe has had its share of plagues; probably more that either Japan or Korea.
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Get It Over With: People Choose More Difficult Tasks to Get Jobs Done More Quickly
Most of us are well-acquainted with procrastination, but new research suggests that “pre-crastination”—hurrying to complete a task as soon as possible—may also be a common phenomenon.
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Lousy Weather May Fuel Work Performance
Wet, gray days are likely to leave you feeling dampened in spirit and low on energy. But, those ugly days may actually enhance the quality and volume of your work.
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What a Great Trip! And I’m Not Even There Yet
The New York Times: Wish you were on vacation right now? Don’t. Taking a vacation won’t necessarily make you happier. But anticipating it will. I first explored this idea while reporting an article about happiness in 2010, the same year that a psychological study about the connection between anticipation and happiness was published online in a journal called Applied Research in Quality of Life. The authors of the study, researchers from the Netherlands, interviewed more than 1,500 people, including 974 vacationers, and found that the vacationers felt most happy before their trips. Read the whole story: The New York Times
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Can Stress Really Make Us Sick?
The Washington Post: It seems like a no-brainer that stress may make us more likely to succumb to viruses and other infections, but that’s a tough connection to make scientifically. For starters, it would not be ethical to test the idea by putting people under extreme stress and exposing them to dangerous infections in the laboratory. But some scientists have nonetheless found ways to study the problem. Their findings show that the picture is more complicated than the notion that too much stress can overwhelm the immune system. Read the whole story: The Washington Post
