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Why we make bad decisions
Salon: What role do our surroundings have in the choices we make? Consider the fact that we are more likely to commit a “random” act of kindness toward a person who has already done something kind toward us. We are less likely to help someone in serious trouble when we’re in a crowd, or choose different professions based on the sound and spelling of our first names. It turns out the context in which we make our decisions has a huge impact on their outcomes.
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A weird and wonderful world of discovery
Irish Times: HAVE YOU ever read about a piece of health- related research and wondered what on Earth possessed anyone to ask that question in the first place? There’s often method to the seeming madness of the quirkier studies, but it’s fun every so often to sit and gather these gems into one spot and marvel at their bizarre qualities. The Ig Nobel awards is usually a good place to go hunting for oddities – the annual prizes celebrate improbable research that makes you laugh and then think. Read the whole story: Irish Times
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Winnie-the-Pooh and the Pervasiveness of Egocentric Bias: Why We Are All THAT Sort of Bear
Scientific American: This past week, Winnie-the-Pooh just wouldn’t let me go. Please write about me, he kept whining. And when I told him I’d already written about him last week, he just looked confused. So what? Write about me again. He insisted that one time was not nearly enough, that he had far, far more to share with the world—and that, after all, the world would be quite happy to hear far, far more about him. And why is that, I wondered? Here, Christopher Robin stepped in, right out of the first chapter of Winnie the Pooh. “Because he’s that sort of Bear.” Indeed. Solid logic if ever there was.
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Män inte så heta som de tror
TV4 Sverige: Vill hon... eller vill hon inte? Antagligen inte. Män överskattar nämligen sin sexuella attraktionskraft, medan kvinnor underskattar den. Men även om många män är ute på tunn is, är strategin inte så dum som den verkar. I det komplicerade samspel som ständigt förekommer oss människor emellan tillhör sexuella signaler bland de svåraste att tyda. För att ta reda på mer lät forskare vid University of Texas at Austin i USA 200 manliga och kvinnliga studenter genomgå en sorts speed-dejting. Därefter fick de uppskatta hur gärna de kunde tänka sig att ha en kortare sexuell relation med respektive partner samt deras egen sexuella attraktionskraft. Read the whole story: TV4 Sverige
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Is ‘twin communication’ a real thing?
msnbc: When twins Danielle and Nicole Fisher gave birth to baby boys within minutes of one another, people wondered whether it was the result of some sort of special twin telepathy. After all, what are the chances that two young women would get pregnant within weeks of one another and then deliver 13 minutes apart? The duo insists they didn’t consciously plan to get pregnant together. Twenty-three year old Nicole Fisher put it down to the “twin thing.” “It just has something to do with that twin communication,” she told her hometown New Jersey newspaper, The Courier-Post. But twin experts aren’t ready to explain this away with ESP.
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Pregnancy May Change Mom’s Brain For Good
LiveScience: Time in the womb is obviously important for the development of the fetal brain. But pregnancy is also a time for changes in Mom's brain — changes that may prepare women to become better mothers. These changes still are little-understood, concludes a review published in the December issue of the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science. Pregnant women often complain about "pregnancy brain" or "mommy brain," a memory fog that seems to produce lost car keys and misplaced cell phones. One 2010 study suggested that high levels of sex hormones could be to blame for the frustrating lapses in concentration.
