Psychology

January 10th came and went last week. Did you notice? Perhaps you did if losing weight was part of your New Year's Resolution. Because chances are that by day 10 you were off the wagon. What could you give up for the entire year?  New survey results show that Facebook and Twitter are easy to cast off but pizza, potato chips and french fries are far more difficult. Of the 1,000 individuals in the American general population surveyed,  25 percent said the loss of social media would make 2013 difficult while 39 percent said giving up pizza and other favorite foods would be hardest. 48…

People view brown-eyed faces as more trustworthy than those with blue eyes- unless the blue eyes belong to a man with a broad face, according to a new paper in PLOS ONE.  The psychologists (and an anthropologists) attempt to answer a big question: What makes us think a person's face looks trustworthy?  To find out, they asked college students (142 females and 98 males) to rate facial photographs of 40 female and 40 male students and rate them for perceived trustworthiness based on two features: eye color and face shape.  The 80 photos were rated for trustworthiness (dominance/…

Doctors and scientists will rightly note that, in every study ever done on weight loss, 100% of participants who consumed fewer calories than they burned lost weight. Exercise helps in multiple ways, but in weight loss it helps burn the calories. A survey of psychologists finds they believe something additional; they say dieters should pay attention to the role emotions play in weight gain and loss if they hope to succeed in the physical two. The survey by the Consumer Reports National Research Center asked 1,328 psychologists how they dealt with clients' weight and weight loss challenges.…

New research suggests that racial stereotypes and creativity have more in common than we might think. In an article published in Psychological Science, psychologists find that racial stereotyping and creative stagnation share a common mechanism: categorical thinking.  "Although these two concepts concern very different outcomes, they both occur when people fixate on existing category information and conventional mindsets," the authors write.   They examined whether there might be a causal relationship between racial essentialism — the view that racial groups possess underlying…

Experiments psychologists from the Polytechnic University of Valencia and the University of Oxford say that the color of the cup matters in the flavor of hot chocolate - it tastes better in an orange or cream colored plastic cup than in a white or red one.  Our senses perceive food in a different way depending on the characteristics of the container from which we eat and drink, they say.  They conducted an experiment in which 57 participants had to evaluate samples of hot chocolate served in four different types of plastic cup. They were the same size but of different colors: white…

A desire for expensive, high-status stuff is related to feelings of social status, not social status itself, and that helps why minorities are attracted to 'bling', say psychologists. Previous psychology work has shown that racial minorities spend a larger portion of their incomes than do whites on conspicuous consumption and buying products that suggest high status, like cars with rims made of platinum or gold teeth inserts. But bling is not actually biological, so whites also crave expensive, high-status products - if they imagine themselves in a low-status position. Thus, corrosive "bling…

Industry Intelligence Inc., formerly ForestWeb, does surveys-for-hire in a number of industries, covering everything from food to paper to packaging.  Their 2012 EcoFocus trend survey addressed what makes the 'eco-friendly shopper' tick and concluded what marketing people who have bankrolled the future of their employers on sustainability want to see; 86% of U.S. adult grocery shoppers are “consumers who care”and "sometimes, usually or always" shop based on sustainability. That's good, right?  I agree, all things being equal, except it highlights the schism of what smart people call…

It may not work with the ladies, but when it comes to leading a team tasked with developing new products and bringing them to market, new research from North Carolina State University shows that being nice and playing well with others gives you a very real competitive advantage. One new study shows that project managers can get much better performance from their team when they treat team members with honesty, kindness and respect. A second study shows that product development teams can reap significant quality and cost benefits from socializing with people who work for their suppliers. The…

In the aftermath of the Newtown, CT shooting, people are searching for answers. The mental illness aspect is obvious, much like with the psychology graduate student in Colorado who opened fire on viewers at a theater, but this time the focus is on the anti-social tendencies of Adam Lanza and how they were exacerbated by video game and Hollywood violence. Penn State academics note that while society might want to look for something to fix easily - ban guns, ban video games, ban home schooling - when it comes to video games, a lot depends on the role of the game-playing activity in the gamer's…

Outrage about another school shooting does its part to increase vigilance against the odd ones out, the misfits soiling the norm of usual irrationality, the a-socials, the depressed, the autistic, the evil psychopaths.  Gate keeping HR departments homogenize the workforce.  “Professionalism” cleans academia of all that does not perform under the marketing paradigm. However, normalcy is the problem!  Pathological thinking is necessary for seeing solutions!  At this time of year, I desire to express my love:  It is regrettable that the killer had to die.  We should…