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UK riots: What turns people into looters?
BBC News: There have been some extraordinary scenes in London and other cities this week, from burning buildings and running street battles, to people unashamedly walking into a shop and leaving with a flat-screen television under their arms. Many of the looters have not bothered to cover their faces as they raided electrical stores, sports shops and off-licences. Some have even posed for a picture afterwards, proudly showing off their haul and posting the images on social-networking sites.
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Do narcissists or junkies make better leaders?
Business Insider: Narcissists rise to the top. That's because other people think their qualities - confidence, dominance, authority, and self-esteem - make them good leaders. Is that true? “Our research shows that the opposite seems to be true,” says Barbora Nevicka, a PhD candidate in organizational psychology, describing a new study she undertook with University of Amsterdam colleagues Femke Ten Velden, Annebel De Hoogh, and Annelies Van Vianen. The study found that the narcissists’ preoccupation with their own brilliance inhibits a crucial element of successful group decision-making and performance: the free and creative exchange of information and ideas.
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Why We Like People Who Share Our Taste In Music
The Huffington Post: When you're at a party and you meet new people, you'd like to have some way to get to know about them quickly. You can try to talk about sports with people, but not everyone follows sports. You can try to talk about politics, but those conversations can get heated quickly. Instead, people often ask others about music. Finding out the music that someone else likes seems to give you a lot of information about them, quickly.
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Could stock market stress induce poorer financial decisions?
Los Angeles Times: The Dow Jones industrial average's wicked drops this week seem to have many investors turning to U.S. Treasury bonds and otherwise retreating into defensive economic positions to wait out the apparent financial meltdown. But the results from a recent study indicated that stress, perhaps in the form of an unstable stock market or high unemployment, might cause people to make even more risky financial decisions. A 2009 paper published in the journal Psychological Science showed how people's decision-making changed in response to acute stress.
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Spoiler Alert: Stories Are Not Spoiled by ‘Spoilers’
Many of us go to extraordinary lengths to avoid learning the endings of stories we have yet to read or see – plugging our ears, for example, and loudly repeating “la-la-la-la,” when discussion threatens to reveal the outcome. Of book and movie critics, we demand they not give away any plot twists or, at least, oblige with a clearly labeled “spoiler alert.” We get angry with friends who slip up and spill a fictional secret. But we’re wrong and wasting our time, suggests a new experimental study from the University of California, San Diego. People who flip to the last page of a book before starting it have the better intuition. Spoilers don’t spoil stories.
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Influence Your Child’s Palate Before Birth
ABC News: Want to instill in your child a love of vegetables? Start early. Very early. New research by the Monell Chemical Senses Center finds mothers can influence a baby's palate and food memories before it is born. The study finds that what a woman eats during her pregnancy shapes the baby's food preferences later in life. In the womb, the baby is surrounded and nourished on the amniotic fluid, which is filled with the flavors of what the mom has eaten. Read more: ABC News
