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Another Partisan Divide: Mitt Romney’s Looks
NPR: It's clear that Republicans and Democrats had different political opinions about Mitt Romney. But did Romney literally look different to the two sides? A forthcoming study suggests that might be the case. According to new research from Ohio State University psychologists, individual political biases might have caused 2012 GOP presidential nominee's physical appearance to appear different to Republicans and Democrats.
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The Gift-Giving Mistake Not to Make
TIME: The highest anxiety moment in the holiday season (outside of finding the one dead bulb in a 40-foot string of lights) must be the moment just before your loved ones unwrap their gifts. The ribbon comes untied, the paper falls to the floor—what will their expression be? Figuring out the right gift can be very difficult, and we can easily make mistakes. ... The risk of giving the wrong thing is why gift givers often end up giving consumables such as wine and chocolate, or non-committed gifts such gift cards. After all, these are unlikely to be the “wrong” gift for anyone.
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Le sexe dans la pub? Les femmes disent non, sauf pour des marques de luxe (Sex in advertising? Women say no, except for luxury brands)
Slate: Le sexe vend, beaucoup. Mais le sexe dans la pub ne plaît pas à tout le monde, particulièrement pas aux femmes qui perçoivent ces pubs comme dégradantes, voire insultantes. Néanmoins, ce sentiment de répulsion ne concernerait pas tous les produits commercialisés, mais uniquement les produits bas de gamme. Une étude publiée par le journal de Psychological Science montre que les femmes acceptent dans certains cas que le corps de la femme devienne objet d’érotisme.
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No Fate! Or Maybe Fate. What’s Your Choice?
The Huffington Post: High on my list of guilty pleasures are the Terminator movies, especially T2, which I just watched again the other day. In a crucial scene in this futuristic thriller, hero Sarah Connor is close to despair in a Mexican desert camp, beaten down by the daunting responsibility of saving the world. Sitting alone at a picnic table, she dozes off and dreams of the nuclear devastation that has been foretold and of all the people who will perish. When she wakes with a start, she grabs her Bowie knife and begins carving into the table. She then jumps into action, as the camera lingers on the words she has scratched out: "No fate." This epiphany transforms Sarah.
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Studies show the long-term, positive effects of fitness on cognitive abilities
The Washington Post: It has long been accepted that exercise cuts the risk of heart disease, and recent studies suggest a raft of more general benefits, such as reducing the risk of certain types of cancer and even preventing the onset of Type 2 diabetes. Now it seems that gym junkies can also expect a boost in brainpower, too. This is not just the vague glow of well-being suggested by sayings such as “a sound mind lives in a healthy body.” John Ratey, a neoropsychiatrist at Harvard Medical School and others are finding that fitness has a long-term influence on a wide range of cognitive abilities.
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Eyes are better at mental snapshots than cameras, study suggests
CNN: I've got hundreds of photos from my recent Europe trip, split between a smartphone and a big camera. A lot are shots of the same thing -- my attempt to get the perfect lighting on a fountain or a cathedral, for example -- so that I'll have these scenes to remember always. So I was interested to read a new study in the journal Psychological Science suggesting that the act of taking photos may actually diminish what we remember about objects being photographed. "People just pull out their cameras," says study author Linda Henkel, researcher in the department of psychology at Fairfield University in Connecticut.
