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How a dating app for burrito-lovers exposed one of online dating’s biggest myths
The Washington Post: The only conceivably good thing about branded April Fools’ pranks is that they’re confined to a 24-hour period. The press releases go out; the “jokes” get mocked and aggregated; and within a day it’s all disappeared from our minds and homepages. But this year, one prank remains stubbornly present, almost four weeks after the day came and went. In fact, Burrit-oh! — the dating site that pairs singles based solely on their taste in portable Mexican — has proven so unexpectedly successful that maker Zoosk is thinking of keeping it. “We all thought this was a really good idea and hoped it would take off,” said Megan Murray, the site’s senior content strategist.
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Choice May Sometimes Be A Cognitive Illusion
We may believe that we’re making decisions consciously when the decisions have actually already been made, results from two studies show.
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When does the future begin? A study in maximising motivation
aeon: The answer to the question ‘When does the future begin?’ – which, by the way, is not right now – matters because humans are attuned to focus on the ‘right now’ situation. This is not a flaw. Failure to focus on the opportunities and obstacles in the moment can be dangerous. From an evolutionary perspective, humans around today all descended from ancestors who paid attention in the moment, and hence, didn’t become meals for any predator straying into their path while pondering future goals. Read the whole story: aeon
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4 Telltale Signs You’re A Workplace Ambivert
Forbes: Are you an introvert or extrovert? Not so fast, there is a third category. Consider your office mates. ... In a 2013 research paper in Psychological Science, Adam Grant of The Wharton School deconstructs the traditional belief that extroverts have a natural advantage in sales. Over a three-month study, Grant discovered that ambiverts produced 32% more revenue than extroverts. Read the whole story: Forbes
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Why You Just Helped That Stranger
The Wall Street Journal: As you wait to fly out of a strange town with no plan to return, a local at the airport drops his knapsack in front of you, spilling its contents. Odds are that you will then do something that would astound a meerkat, lion or vampire bat: You will help the stranger pick up his things. ... Human beings have spent 99% of their history living in small hunter-gatherer bands. Such cultures rarely have a deity who pays attention to humans, let alone one who monitors and judges their morality, meting out rewards and punishments. When do religions tend to invent such moralizing gods? A number of researchers—such as Carlos A. Botero of Washington University in St.
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Should You Hug Your Dog?
The New York Times: The next time you want to hug a dog, consider this: You could be making the pooch miserable, an expert says. To the average dog lover, the animals’ floppy ears and pudgy paws are simply cute. But there is actual science behind their design: They are cursorial animals, which means that they have adapted to run as their first line of defense, said Stanley Coren, a psychology professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia and a dog-training expert. So when a human, however well-meaning or needy, moves in for a full-body embrace, it immobilizes the dog and increases the animal’s stress level, he wrote in a Psychology Today blog post this month.
