Psychology

It's always fun science when we can say researchers from Brown have discovered that men have more red in their skin and women more green - but Michael J. Tarr and graduate student Adrian Nestor say they have discovered this color difference in an analysis of dozens of faces and it's a key issue in cognitive science research and face perception. This information may also have a number industry or consumer applications in areas such as facial recognition technology, advertising, and studies of how and why women apply makeup. "Color information is very robust and useful for telling a man from a…

Middle-aged men want younger women and don't mind talking about their own positive qualities to get them, according to research at Gothenburg University and Oxford University that studied 400 matchmaking ads to see how men and women choose partners. There's no shortage of ideas about how men and women choose their partners. Among the more established myths is that men place more emphasis on attractive appearance, whereas resources and social status are more important to women.  By examining romantic advertisements, researchers at the University of Gothenburg and the University of Oxford…

In times of economic distress and plenty, ninety percent of Americans pray, more than half of us once a day or more. We pray for big things—to stay healthy, to keep our jobs, and to strengthen our relationships. And we pray for small things—to find parking spaces and missing items. Some of us are sure God exists and others pray simply to cover the bases.  A novel Brandeis study published in the current issue of Poetics analyzed 683 prayers written in a public prayer book placed in the rotunda of the Johns Hopkins University Hospital between 1999 and 2005. The study found that prayer…

All of us have experienced being in a new place and feeling certain that we have been there before. This mysterious feeling, commonly known as déjà vu, occurs when we feel that a new situation is familiar, even if there is evidence that the situation could not have occurred previously. For a long time, this eerie sensation has been attributed to everything from paranormal disturbances to neurological disorders. However, in recent years, as more scientists began studying this phenomenon, a number of theories about déjà vu have emerged, suggesting that it is not merely a glitch in our brain's…

If you're happy and you know it, thank your friends—and their friends. And while you're at it, their friends' friends. But if you're sad, hold the blame. Researchers from Harvard Medical School and the University of California, San Diego have found that "happiness" is not the result solely of a cloistered journey filled with individually tailored self-help techniques. Happiness is also a collective phenomenon that spreads through social networks like an emotional contagion.  In a study that looked at the happiness of nearly 5000 individuals over a period of twenty years, researchers…

The phrase "empty nest" can conjure up images of sad and lonely parents sitting at home, twiddling their thumbs, waiting for their children to call or visit. However, a new study, reported in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that an empty nest may have beneficial effects on the parents' marriage. University of California, Berkeley psychologists Sara M. Gorchoff, Oliver P. John and Ravenna Helson tracked the marital satisfaction of a group of women over 18 years, from the time they were in their 40s to when they were in their early 60s.…

Are consumers under too much pressure to be healthy? Has the global financial crisis sidelined the promotion of sustainable food? And how much do consumers actually know or care about the subject? These are some of the questions being asked exclusively of people in Nottinghamshire in a major new study, by a researcher at The University of Nottingham. PhD candidate Angie Clonan, from the Division of Nutritional Sciences, will send out 2,500 questionnaires in an unprecedented survey that will find out what consumers really think about sustainable foods. "It's accepted that food choices are…

No one needs to tell Disney, who brought the likes of Herbie the Love Bug and Lightning McQueen to the big screen, that cars have personalities.   A study co-authored by a Florida State University researcher says it has confirmed through a complex statistical analysis that many people see human facial features in the front end of automobiles and ascribe various personality traits to cars -- a modern experience driven by our prehistoric psyches. Researchers, product designers and, of course, filmmakers have long toyed with the idea that cars have faces, but this study is the first to…

The next time you have to make a difficult moral decision, you might think twice about mulling it over in the bath or shower.   New research in Psychological Science has found that the physical notion of cleanliness significantly reduces the severity of moral judgments showing that intuition, rather than deliberate reasoning, can influence our perception of what is right and wrong. Lead researcher, Simone Schnall, University of Plymouth, explains the relevance of the findings to everyday life; “When we exercise moral judgment, we believe we are making a conscious, rational decision, but…

Cordiality and mutually beneficial arrangements can be more important than hard-negotiated deals when it comes to cementing strong working relationships among supply chain partners, according to the Management Insights feature in the current issue of Management Science.  In their study, the authors observe that people's actions in economic transactions are motivated by more than incentives.  Incentives, say the authors, can cause people to be calculating rather than oriented toward a win-win. Behavior is also influenced emotionally by social preferences. In particular, people care…