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The Myth of the ‘Queen Bee’: Work and Sexism
Researchers wondered if the “queen bee” behavior—refusing to help other women and denying that gender discrimination is a problem, for example—might be a response to a difficult, male-dominated environment.
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Why Seeing (The Unexpected) Is Often Not Believing
NPR: Two months ago, on a wooded path in upstate New York, a psychologist named Chris Chabris strapped a video camera to a 20-year-old man and told him to chase after a jogger making his way down the path. For close to two years Chabris, who teaches at Union College, had been conducting this same experiment. He did the experiment at night, in the afternoon, with women, with men. All were told to run after the jogger and watch him. The goal of all this was to answer a question: Is it possible to see something really, really obvious and not perceive it?
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Nodding Off First May Leave Your Partner Wanting
MSNBC: WASHINGTON — Falling asleep first after having sex may leave your partner longing for attention and more bonding time, new research finds. "The time the couple spends together after sex is prime time for bonding and the commitment conversation," said Daniel Kruger of the University of Michigan School of Public Health. " Your oxytocin and the hormones related to affective relationships are raging, so it's prime time for bonding." This after-sex bonding period could be evolutionarily derived, since in the case of a pregnancy, the female would desire a commitment from her sexual partner. Spending this time bonding could be an important way to secure that commitment.
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Reason Seen More as Weapon Than Path to Truth
The New York Times: For centuries thinkers have assumed that the uniquely human capacity for reasoning has existed to let people reach beyond mere perception and reflex in the search for truth. Rationality allowed a solitary thinker to blaze a path to philosophical, moral and scientific enlightenment. Now some researchers are suggesting that reason evolved for a completely different purpose: to win arguments. Rationality, by this yardstick (and irrationality too, but we’ll get to that) is nothing more or less than a servant of the hard-wired compulsion to triumph in the debating arena.
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Ambition + Desire = Trouble
The New York Times: “I DON’T know what I was thinking.” So said Anthony D. Weiner in a news conference moments after finally admitting that he had sent naughty photos of himself to women he had met on the Internet. The married former congressman, who resigned on Thursday, 10 days after that confessional press conference, might not know what he had been thinking — but scientists have an idea or two. Read more: The New York Times
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Income Inequality Costing Americans Their Happiness
LiveScience: Americans are happier in times when the gap between rich and poor is smaller, a new study finds. The reason, according to research to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science, is that when the income gap is large, lower- and middle-income people feel less trusting of others and expect people to treat them less fairly. The study also provides a potential explanation for why American happiness hasn't risen along with national wealth in the last 50 years. Read more: LiveScience
