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The Lipstick Effect: In Recessions, Women Still Buy Beauty Products
The Wall Street Journal: Tough times demand sensuous lips? It’s long been conventional wisdom among retailers that one thing women don’t cut back on, in an economic downturn, is beauty products — indeed, they may increase such spending. A new study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology claims to be the first to demonstrate the existence of the so-called lipstick effect: Using both historical spending data and rigorous experiments, we examine how and why economic recessions influence women’s consumer behavior. Read the whole story: The Wall Street Journal
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7 Quick Ways to Relieve Stress
Washingtonian: There’s some truth to this common phrase. People who smile while performing a stressful task are more likely to have lower heart rates afterward, according to a recent study published in Psychological Science. That goes for fake smiles, too; those who were forced to smile (using chopsticks, of all things) also reported a positive effect afterward. Read the whole story: Washingtonian
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IT IS BETTER TO GIVE THAN RECEIVE
Express UK: Thinking of being generous encourages people to be more helpful – while contemplating gifts received makes us feel more dependent and enslaved. Dr Adam Grant, of Pennsylvania University, and Jane Dutton, of Michigan university, studied two groups of fundraisers. Those who wrote about giving for just two or three days increased their hourly phone calls by more than 29 per cent in the following two weeks. Those who wrote about receiving had no change in calls.
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Revealing the Psychology of Playing Card Magic
Scientific American: Think of a playing card. Got one in mind? Although it may have felt like a free choice, think again: Most people choose one of only four cards, out of a deck of 52. For now, remember your card — we’ll return to it later. For thousands of years, magicians have amazed audiences by developing and applying intuitions about the mind. Skilled magicians can manipulate memories, control attention, and influence choices. But magicians rarely know why these principles work. Studying magic could reveal the mechanisms of the mind that enable these principles, to uncover the why rather than just the how. Read the whole story: Scientific American
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A Sense of Awe Extends Time
The Wall Street Journal: When people feel permanently harried and strapped for time, maybe what they are missing in their lives is a sense of awe. A new study finds that people who are made to feel awe believe they have more time available to them, they’re less impatient, and they are more willing to do volunteer work. They also express a preference for experiences, such as watching a movie, over material goods of equal value (say, a $10 gas card). And that choice could, in turn, pay dividends, because other psychological studies have found that events and activities create more long-term happiness than does accumulating things. Read the whole story: The Wall Street Journal
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Conservatism makes you happy
Salon: In general, political conservatives haven’t been very pleased with a slew of scientific attempts — sometimes dating back well over a decade — to psychoanalyze their beliefs and behavior. Indeed, some on the right wrongly interpret these analyses as implying that conservatives have “bad brains” or a “mental defect.” Yet if psychology-of-politics research is really a veiled attack on the right, then why does it contain so many findings that cast conservatives in a positive light? Chief among these, perhaps, is the discovery that conservatives, across countries, tend to be just plain happier people than liberals are.
