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Robot Reveals Why Humans Trust, and Don’t
Discovery News: Humans often make snap judgements about who to trust. Most people will say "I didn't like the look of that person," but what that means, exactly, has been elusive. Now a robot is helping to tease that out. At Northeastern University, psychology professor David DeSteno wanted to see what was going on. Working with partners at MIT and Cornell University, he started by looking at what kinds of interactions make humans trust each other more. He had 86 Northeastern students conduct either a face-to-face conversation or a Web-based chat. The conversations were with people they didn't know and lasted five minutes.
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New Rx for Spider Fears? Shout It Out
LiveScience: Feeling frightened? Say so. A new study finds that speaking your emotions out loud can help you confront your fears. People who fear spiders are less distressed upon approaching a large, hairy tarantula when they say, out loud, that they're afraid. Voicing fear was a more effective tactic at banishing it than the soothing self-talk ("That little spider can't hurt me") more often used when people confront their phobias, researchers reported.
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Modern men value brains over curves
The Telegraph: But men should still take care with their own appearance, because 21st century women are becoming ever more swayed by physical attractiveness and less concerned with finding a wealthy husband. The narrowing of the gender gap in western countries means that the traditional priorities of both sexes when looking for a partner have shifted, researchers said. While men have learned to value women for more than just their curves, women's increasing financial independence means a man's appeal is no longer directly linked to the size of his wallet.
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How Your Cell Phone Hurts Your Relationships
Scientific American: Most of us are no stranger to this scenario: A group of friends sits down to a meal together, laughing, swapping stories, and catching up on the news – but not necessarily with the people in front of them! Nowadays, it’s not unusual to have one’s phone handy on the table, easily within reach for looking up movie times, checking e-mails, showing off photos, or taking a call or two. It’s a rare person who doesn’t give in to a quick glance at the phone every now and then. Today’s multifunctional phones have become an indispensable lifeline to the rest of the world.
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Quand les mots effacent les peurs (When words fade fears)
Le Figaro: La parole apaise la colère», disait Eschyle. Elle pourrait également apaiser les craintes, d'après une étude américaine parue dans la revue Pyschological Science : des phobiques des araignées ont en effet réussi à maîtriser leur peur, simplement en la verbalisant. Et plus les mots étaient francs, plus l'effet était important. L'équipe du Dr. Katerina Kircanski à l'Université de Californie, Los Angeles a soumis 88 arachnophobes à une véritable épreuve: approcher le plus près possible d'une tarentule vivante dans un bocal ouvert situé en plein air.
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Consumer Product Safety Commission begins to consider bans in addition to warning labels
The Washington Post: Today, warnings are so pervasive that they’ve become a nearly meaningless safety tool in some areas, more useful in protecting manufacturers against legal liability than in guarding consumers from harm, according to David Egilman, a clinical professor at Brown University’s family medicine department who has researched industry’s influence on warnings. “If everything you pick up has a warning on it, you’re going to instinctively ignore all warnings,” Egilman said. “That’s the real problem.” It’s the classic “cry wolf” situation, said Richard Thompson, a psychology and biological sciences professor at the University of Southern California.
