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Miracle Fruit: The Results Are In!
Magical Miracle Fruit The Results Are In! At Convention last year APS Past-President Linda Bartoshuk led a miracle fruit experiment with the audience during the Presidential Symposium in Boston, MA. Audience members tasted 'miracle fruit,' a freeze-dried West African berry, that changed the way they tasted fruit they ate afterwards. Check out last year's video below and be sure to swing by Poster Session VIII, Board 132 to see the results of the experiment on display.
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Macho Men
“I’ve Got to Be a Macho, Macho Man.” Village People said it, but research has the science to back it up. An article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science explains that when men feel threatened, they use aggression to assert their machismo. In a series of studies, some men were asked to do “feminine” tasks such as braiding hair while others were asked to do gender-neutral tasks such as braiding a rope. When given the option to punch a bag or do a puzzle, those whose manhood had been threatened were exceedingly more likely to choose the former. When all volunteers got to punch the bag, those who had braided hair punched it harder.
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Power, Confidence and…Infidelity
Tiger Woods, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump–they’ve all cheated, they’ve all got power, and they’re all men. People often assume that men are more likely to cheat than women, so researchers decided to look at the role of gender and the role of power in infidelity. An upcoming study to be published in Psychological Science found that power has a stronger link to cheating than gender does.
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We’ve Got to Have It Under Control
We love being in control. When we have power, we have control over what others do; when we have choice, we have control over what happens to us personally. A study published in Psychological Science found that when we have either power or choice, we don’t strive for the other as much, but when either source of control is lacking, we have a greater need for the other. In one experiment, volunteers who were asked to think about being in a powerless position favored the store that provided fifteen options of a desired product over a store with only three options. They were also willing to go to greater lengths (e.g.
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Facial Attraction
What makes a man or a woman attractive? We all have our individual preferences, but research has found a trend. A study published in Psychological Science found that there’s more to “masculinity” in men and “femininity” in women that makes them attractive to the opposite gender. Researchers created a computer program that analyzed thousands of male and female faces and the ratings they received from various opposite-gender volunteers. They looked at 50 different dimensions of attractiveness and divided them into two categories – “shape” (e.g. plumpness of lips) and “reflectance” (e.g. lightness or darkness of face).
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The Yin and Yang of Emotional Intelligence
It’s hard to believe it, but Princess Diana and Charles Manson have something in common: they’re both emotionally intelligent. They are good at identifying and regulating their own and others’ emotions. Although people often associate having emotional intelligence with having a good moral character, a study published in Psychological Science found that emotional intelligence can be used for good or for evil. In the first experiment, volunteers were measured on their moral identity and took part of a game that directly assessed their moral kindness behaviors.
