-
Inside the Cheater’s Mind
The New Yorker: A few years ago, acting on a tip, school administrators at Great Neck North High School, a prominent, academically competitive public school in Long Island, took a closer look at students’ standardized test scores. Some of them seemed suspiciously high. What’s more, some of the high scorers had registered to take the test well outside their home district. When the Educational Testing Service conducted a handwriting analysis on the suspect exams, they concluded that the same person had taken multiple tests, registering each time under a different name. In November, 2011, twenty students from schools in Nassau County were arrested and accused of cheating.
-
Study: Gun Violence on the Rise in PG-13 Films
The Wall Street Journal: A new study concludes that gun violence in PG-13 movies has more than tripled since 1985, and now exceeds the level found in R-rated films. Study co-author and Ohio State Professor of Psychology Brad Bushman discusses his findings. Read the whole story: The Wall Street Journal
-
Work Up a Sweat, and Bargain Better
The New York Times: If better health isn’t enough incentive to take a brisk walk, perhaps there is another one: it may get you a better deal. New research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers a twist on the adage “never let them see you sweat,” says Jared Curhan, associate professor of organization studies at M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management, and one of the study’s co-authors. “If you’re sweating, and your heart rate is up, it’s seen as a sign something is going wrong, that you’re too nervous, off-balance, flustered,” he said.
-
PG-13 movies match R rating for violence, study says
The Washington Post: The prevalence of gun violence in top PG-13 movies has more than tripled since the rating was introduced in the mid-1980s, and last year it eclipsed even the amount in R-rated movies, according to findings to be published Monday in the journal Pediatrics. “I think most parents would be surprised to learn that,” said Brad Bushman, a professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University and one of the study’s authors. “We were pretty shocked.” ...
-
What’s In A Name? That Next Promotion, For One Thing
Fast Company: Studies have shown that all sorts of ridiculous things correlate with people's relative power: if you're taller, more attractive, have a deeper voice, you'll be more likely be successful. And as a new study from Deutschland shows, your surname might be another factor. let's compare these German names: Kaiser (“emperor”) König (“king”) Fürst (“prince”) With these: Bergmann (“miner”), Schubert (“shoemaker”) Zimmerman (“carpenter”) What's the difference between the first group and the second? The first are noble-sounding (in the cases of princes, quite literally). Read the whole story: Fast Company
-
Cheerleader Effect: Why People Are More Beautiful in Groups
The Atlantic: Who should I hang out with if I want to look the most attractive? And how many of said people must I acquire? The basic idea of research published this week in the journal Psychological Science is that our asymmetries and disproportionalities tend to "average out" amid a group of faces, and our weird little faces are perceived as slightly less weird. Drew Walker and Edward Vul of the University of California, San Diego, did five experiments wherein subjects rated the attractiveness of people in photographs. Some people were pictured alone, and others were in groups.
