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You choose, you lose
The Boston Globe: Beggars can’t be choosers, and, even worse for beggars, choosers don’t like beggars, according to a new study. People watched a six-minute video depicting a man engaging in a series of mundane activities in his apartment. Before watching the video, some people were told to note when the man made a choice; other people were told to note when the man touched an object. After watching the video while paying attention to choice, people were less supportive of affirmative action, banning harmful products, taxing fuel-inefficient cars, and requiring energy-saving insulation, and more supportive of legalizing marijuana and expanding adoption to unmarried parents.
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The Upside of College Rejection: Your Safety School Might Be the Smarter Choice
Time: The headlines last week weren't pretty. As colleges and universities nationwide revealed their admissions decisions, news broke of a dramatic decline in acceptance rates — and not just at Ivy League schools. The shift means that for the legions of high school students who sunk all their hopes and plans into a dream school find themselves grappling with some serious disappointment this week. Read the whole story: Time
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Climate beliefs change with the weather
ABC News.au: US researchers have found people's climate beliefs blow hot and cold depending upon the weather of the day. When people think the day's temperature is hotter than usual they are more likely to believe in and feel concerned about global warming. Likewise, when the day's temperature is lower than usual, people's belief in global warming plummets. These are the findings of a new study from Columbia University's Centre for Research on Environmental Decisions published in Psychological Science. Read the whole story: ABC.news.au
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Some People’s Climate Beliefs Shift With Weather
Results from three studies show that people who thought the current day was warmer than usual were more likely to believe in and feel concern about global warming than those who thought the day was unusually cold.
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The Weather Changes Our Opinions About Climate Change: Study
Fast Company: Any time the weather is extreme, people on either side of the climate change debate will use it to prove the other side is wrong. If it's cold in summer, climate change nonbelievers will ask where the global warming is. If it's hot in winter, climate change activists will ask people to just step outside to see the changes we have wrought on the environment.
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Date Comedy
The New Yorker: Tad Friend writes this week about Anna Faris. His article is called “Funny Like a Guy,” and it discusses whether Faris’s style of humor can succeed in a movie industry that caters to adolescent males. There is no doubt that there is a gender gap in humor—whether in Hollywood, standup, or cartooning. In his book “Laughter,” the psychologist Robert Provine demonstrates that, in conversation, women are much more likely to laugh at what men say than the other way around. Provine analyzed “laugh episodes” in recorded conversation. He also looked at thousands of personal ads, and saw that both sexes were looking for partners with a sense of humor.
