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Sports fans: The gluttony of defeat
The Boston Globe: It’s 4th and goal. The announcer screams, “It’s gut-check time!” Turns out, if your team chokes, it’s gut-check time for you too — literally. In a study in the journal Psychological Science, researchers found that fans of losing National Football League teams eat more unhealthy food the Monday after a game while fans of victorious teams decreased their intake of saturated fat and calories. The effect was true for both men and women and most pronounced in cities with the most devoted fans, with saturated fat consumption zooming up by 28 percent the Monday after a loss and decreasing 16 percent after a victory. Read the whole story: The Boston Globe
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Parents’ Harsh Words Might Make Teen Behaviors Worse
NPR: Most parents yell at their kids at some point. It often feels like the last option for getting children to pay attention and shape up. But harsh verbal discipline may backfire. Teenagers act worse if they're yelled at, a study finds. Researchers asked parents of 13-year-olds in the Philadelphia area how often in the past year they'd yelled, cursed or called the kid "dumb or lazy or some other word like that" after he or she had done something wrong. Almost half of the nearly 900 parents said they used harsh verbal punishment — 45 percent of the moms and 42 percent of the fathers.
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How to Cope When Your Spouse Embarrasses You
The Wall Street Journal: Michele Phillips and her husband, Gary Wadds, were hanging out on the porch with friends one evening in Piermont, N.Y., when the talk turned to hiking. One person mentioned a local trail, another raved about her new hiking boots. Then Ms. Phillips chimed in with, "Gary and I fooled around behind some rocks on a path on Bear Mountain—and another hiker saw us." ... "The number of ways for spouses to embarrass each other is almost endless," says Mark Leary, professor of psychology and neuroscience and director of the Social Psychology Program at Duke University.
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Forensic experts ‘biased towards side which pays them’
The Telegraph: Although forensic experts are meant to be completely impartial when giving an expert opinion to the jury, they tend to favour the side which employs them. A study found that while the experts believed they were being impartial, there was an "allegiance effect" which appeared to colour their judgements. Researchers from the University of Virginia recruited 118 forensic psychologists and psychiatrists to evaluate a batch of case files on sexually violent offenders, telling them the work was commissioned by either prosecution or defence lawyers.
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Soup Kitchen Psychology: Nourishment For Impoverished Thinking
The Huffington Post: Poverty is emotionally crushing, and stigma only adds to that burden. The poor are often disparaged as lazy and incompetent -- unable or unwilling to improve their own lot. Why don't they go to school, eat more sensibly, and spend their money more wisely? In short, why don't they make better decisions for themselves? ... A team of psychological scientists may offer some hope. Crystal Hall of the University of Washington, and her colleagues Jiaying Zhao of the University of British Columbia and Eldar Shafir of Princeton, have been exploring ways to lessen the mental toll of poverty, and their work suggests that self-affirmation may be a useful tool.
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Research Suggests That Being a Fan of a Bad NFL Team Is Making You Fat
Sports Illustrated: As if wearing an adult-sized replica jersey, yelling at the TV, and paying extortionary sums for personal seat licenses weren’t evidence enough, science has come along and confirmed what everyone already knew: Football makes fans do stupid things. Or, as it were, eat stupid things. This is according to professor Pierre Chandon and PhD candidate Yann Cornil of INSEAD Business School, who recently published a study in Psychological Science detailing how losses drive disconsolate fans into the arms of saturated fats.
