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On Pinterest, it’s share and share alike
Los Angeles Times: Americans spend upward of 30 hours a month staring at their computer screens, shopping and browsing and seeking. We relish the efficiency, the expanse of information, the anonymity and the freedom. But we are social creatures and as such, can't seem to stop gathering in various online communities to share music or photos of fabulous dinners or handbags. We come together when rumors circle over a Kim Kardashian-Kanye West courtship or the replacement for John Galliano is announced at Dior.
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For Better Decisions, Think in a Foreign Language
The Wall Street Journal: The psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amon Tversky won the Nobel Prize in Economics in part for identifying certain consistent deviations from rationality that seem to be endemic among human decision-makers. Susceptibility to “framing” is one such bias. Consider a situation in which a disease puts 600,000 people at risk, and it’s your job to choose the medicine to deploy. One option is presented his way: If you choose Medicine A, 200,000 people will be saved. If you choose Medicine B, there is a 33.3% chance that 600,000 people will be saved and a 66.6% chance that no one will be saved. That’s the “gain-frame” version of the question.
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Where the empty calories just keep on coming
The Washington Post: In a game obsessed with numbers — home runs, earned run averages, stolen bases, Derek Jeter hookups — it should come as little surprise, that, given half a chance, baseball fans can rattle off exactly how many hot dogs they’ve wolfed down during the course of a nine-inning game. Case in point: Before the first pitch at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore last week, Mark Mirchandani casually announced that he already had gobbled three Esskay dogs.
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Mental Health Minute: Never Forget a Name Again
Glamour: Are you suffer from chronic name forgetfulness? Maybe you're not doing this... If you've ever faced someone and completely spaced out on her name, it could be because you didn't focus on a single feature of a person's face. In a new study published in the journal Psychological Science, researchers learned that people are more likely to remember someone's name if they remember a key feature on their face (their beautiful eyes, or great smile, for instance), rather than just the overall picture of their face. Read the whole story: Glamour
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The Gifts We Keep On Giving
With so many holidays and celebrations, who can blame someone for doing a little recycling, or as it is commonly known, regifting? Not the person who actually gave the original gift, despite what a regifter may think.
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Let Us Eat Cake: The Paradox of Scarcity
Huffington Post: Everyone knows by now that the U.S. is in the midst of an obesity epidemic, but for all the hand wringing, nobody really knows why. Experts have offered many theories about why Americans eat too much, especially too much fattening food, but these remain theories. It's because Americans are ill-informed about diet and nutrition and simply do not understand that double cheeseburgers are loaded with fat and calories. Or it's because we're constantly bombarded with stimulating ads for tempting but unhealthful snacks. Or it's because we simply lack the self-discipline of earlier generations. Or all of the above. Or perhaps something else entirely.
