Psychology

According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, what we think of a product or brand, or how positively or negatively we assess it, depends on the context in which it is viewed.
The research suggests that marketers have to carefully construct and consider the context to get the desired results.
"Although [consumers] generally think their judgments reflect the true quality of the products, many irrelevant contextual factors from the weather to another product brand can influence consumers' evaluations," the authors write.
The study was based on four experiments that looked at how…

Most people think that money is the solution to their problems. But that may only be true if they acquire enough money to improve their social rank, according to a new study in Psychological Science. The study found that a bigger paycheck was not the solution if it did not make the recipients wealthier than their neighbors, friends and colleagues.
Researchers from Cardiff and Warwick Universities looked at data on earnings and life satisfaction from seven years of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), which is a representative longitudinal sample of British households.
They first…

Just being in the presence of attractive women make men do stupid things- or at least take more risks, according to a study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.
According to researchers, testosterone levels increased in men when attractive women were present. Since testosterone is a sex hormone, and has also been shown to play a role in fight-or-flight responses and risk-taking behaviors, this result is not surprising. Is anyone shocked to find that men subconsciously try and "be more manly" in front of pretty females? I filed this study away with the other…

Proper contemporary psychologist claim all the injuries of the autistc people are psyco- somatic meaning we just think we are hurt. In reality are bodies only feel 8-9-10 on the pain scale.
That means we have lastose intoeance presenting as something awful, last stage of athesma attck with NO pre signals and we often collaspe not knowing we are out of air. Many of us in our anthropology walk on uneven hips and finally at the ages of 30 and above we finally hurt. We walk away from Car crashes "unhurt" our Hero and father of the computer, Alan Turing Ran marathons with…

This will be all greek to everyone.
From Rich Shull Once hailed as the next Temple Grandin.
As we finally connected life from our mr/dd roots to what ever we do now as old high functioning autisitcs, We discoved our OPTIC Nerve or optic and brain generated vision is interchanged all the time. If this Autism expereince is right, this also is a version of your normal thoughts. Autism has a term called lack of eye contact where autisitc people don't keep eye contat while they are thinking or talking with you. What is really happeining is Our EYEs ARE OFF yes, off…

If the idea was ever in doubt, psychologists writing in Social Psychological and Personality Science say they have confirmed that pretty girls make boys do dumb things.
Specifically, they say the presence of an attractive woman elevates testosterone levels and physical risk taking in young men.
For the study, young adult men were asked to perform both easy and difficult tricks on skateboards, first in front of another male and then in front of a young, attractive female. The skateboarder's testosterone levels were measured after each trick.
When skateboarders attempt tricks, they make a…

Despite several social psychological theories that suggest otherwise, failing to meet educational goals does not result in depression, say sociologists from Floria and Kansas State Universities.
Their study in American Sociological review indicates that making no attempt to achieve extravagant educational goals is, in fact, the way to encourage depression.
The authors used two national studies of youth, the National Longitudinal Study and the Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (ADD Health), both of which track respondents over a period of time, to test whether unrealized expectations…

Early last month, the now-famous paper by Dr Andrew Wakefield that supposedly linked vaccines to the onset of Autism, was formally retracted by the Lancet, the journal that published it back in 1998. This was a monumental decision, considering it was the conclusions drawn from this paper that launched the firestorm of debate around the safety of vaccines, and likely the cause of the current vaccine crisis.
It goes without saying, but in case some of you have not made the connection yet, this retraction means that there never was a valid link between vaccines and Autism; not even one study…

Humans use a wide range of cues, both verbal and non-verbal, to communicate different emotions.
But vocalizing some positive emotions may be a socially learned behavior, as opposed to a product of evolution, according to a new study in PNAS that looked at non-verbal emotional vocalizations in two different cultural groups.
For the study, University College London researchers compared the responses of 51 Westerners to those of 58 remote and culturally isolated semi-nomadic Himba people of Namibia. Nine emotions - achievement, amusement, anger, disgust, fear, sensual pleasure, relief,…

When men make sexist comments, they insult all women within earshot and negatively influence how they feel towards men in general, say researchers writing in Sex Roles.
The University of Connecticut team examined women's reactions to overhearing a catcall remark and, in particular, how observing a specific sexist incident impacts women's feelings and attitudes towards men.
They asked 114 undergraduate female students to watch a video and imagine themselves as bystanders to a situation where a man made either a sexist catcall remark ("Hey Kelly, your boobs look great in that shirt!") at…