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Why Trolls Behave the Way They Do
The Wall Street Journal: People who troll online get the same thrill from it as drinking and exercising power according to U.S. researchers. Apparently anonymity means web users lose their inhibitions in much the same way as alcohol reduces people’s inhibitions. The people’s true characters are revealed, according to research conducted by Northwestern University. Read more: The Wall Street Journal
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Is He Gay? Ovulating Women Can Tell
TIME Healthland: Ovulation is a really useful biological function. Not only does it facilitate pregnancy — though sperm are in no short supply, the ephemeral egg appears just once a month — but new research finds that it also helps a woman select potential partners by enhancing her "gaydar." All this complex sexual decision-making is going on behind the scenes, according to a study published online this week in the journal Psychological Science that found that straight women at their peak period of fertility are far more accurate than non-ovulaters at sussing out who's gay and who's not just by looking at a man's face.
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Mood and Experience: Life Comes At You
Living through weddings or divorces, job losses and children’s triumphs, we sometimes feel better and sometimes feel worse. But, psychologists observe, we tend to drift back to a “set point”—a stable resting point, or baseline, in the mind’s level of contentment or unease. Research has shown that the set points for depression and anxiety are particularly stable over time. Why? “The overwhelming view within psychiatry and psychology is that is due to genetic factors,” says Virginia Commonwealth University psychiatrist Kenneth S. Kendler.
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Scary New Cigarette Labels Not Based in Psychology
Science: There's no question that the nine new graphic cigarette warning labels designed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which will be on all cigarette packages sold in the United States starting in September 2012, are ghastly. But has rampant gruesome imagery in shows like House emasculated their effectiveness? And will these pictures really convince a jaded smoker to quit or prevent a rebellious teenager from starting?
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How To Quit Smoking? Think About Smoking
The Huffington Post: Paradoxically, the news of the government's plans for grisly anti-smoking ads made me crave a cigarette. I quit smoking many years ago and rarely have a craving anymore, but seeing these ads brought it all back. It also reminded me of the unpleasantness of quitting, including the obsessive thoughts. My quitting strategy was to keep my mind and body busy all the time, in order to keep my thoughts of cigarettes at bay. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't. I relapsed a few times before I finally quit for good. Read more: The Huffington Post
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Potatoes bad, nuts good for staying slim, Harvard study finds
The Washington Post: Everyone knows that people who chow down on french fries, chug soda and go heavy on red meat tend to pile on more pounds than those who stick to salads, fruits and grains. But is a serving of boiled potatoes really much worse than a helping of nuts? Is some white bread as bad as a candy bar? Could yogurt be a key to staying slim? The answer to all those questions is yes, according to the provocative revelations produced by a big Harvard project that for the first time details how much weight individual foods make people put on or keep off. The federally funded analysis of data collected over 20 years from more than 120,000 U.S.
