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Grumpy old gorilla apes aging human males
The Globe and Mail: “For the past 100 years or so, psychologists have supported the notion that all humans have the same set of basic biological emotions,” says Psych Central News. “But a new paper in Current Directions in Psychological Science challenges this belief and holds that some of our established security procedures may be misguided. In her article, clinical psychologist Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett of Northeastern University said a current method to train security workers to recognize ‘basic’ emotions from expressions might be ill-advised, potentially placing individuals at risk.
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Men who try hard get the girl: study
New Zealand Herald: We've all met men who think they're God's gift to women. No matter how many times they're rebuffed in the dating game, they always bounce back. But a study suggests those who display such a fighting spirit might be the ones favoured by evolution - the more a man believes a woman will fancy him, the more likely he is to try it on and therefore get lucky and procreate. It also suggests that if a man's super attracted to a woman, the chances are she's not interested. It claims men are wired to get it wrong time and again because evolution is telling them not to miss a mating opportunity. Read the whole story: New Zealand Herald
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The secret to sexual success for men? Misreading whether women are interested – and having a thick skin
The Daily Mail: Lotharios who 'misread the signals' from women and assume they are more attractive than they are - and there are lots - should just be in for repeated embarasssments, you might think. But researchers now think that men who misjudge what women think of them are actually at an advantage in the mating game - as long as they keep trying. Men might actually have evolved the trait - men who misjudge whether women are interested, then 'bounce back' to ask other women, tend to eventually succeed, then go on to have more offspring. Over time, this may have led men evolving to become more thick-skinned - and to misjudge their chances even worse. Read the whole story: The Daily Mail
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Decaying Neighborhoods Linked to Premature Births
LiveScience: Women who live in neighborhoods blighted by dilapidated buildings and other signs of decay are more likely to have premature or low-birth-weight babies, a new study finds. It's not yet known what physiological thread, or other factor, links urban blight with unhealthy pregnancies, but researchers report in the December issue of Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology that the link is strongest among blacks, a group that has 1.5 times the risk of preterm births than whites.
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If You Can’t Notice a Gorilla in Plain Sight, How Can You Testify as a Witness?
Discover Magazine: Late one January night in 1995, Boston police officer Kenny Conley ran right past the site of a brutal beating without doing a thing about it. The case received extensive media coverage because the victim was an undercover police officer and the aggressors were other cops. Conley steadfastly refused to admit having seen anything, and he was tried and convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. Prosecutors, jurors, and judges took Conley’s denial to reflect an unwillingness to testify against other cops, a lie by omission. How could you run right past something as dramatic as a violent attack without seeing it?
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Awakening Your Inner Materialist
The Huffington Post: I don't see myself as especially materialistic, and you probably don't see yourself that way either. The fact is, I don't know anyone who actually takes pride in acquiring more and more stuff, and many of my friends decry the commercialization of the holiday season. That's a good thing, because all the evidence says that people who are preoccupied with possessions are not very happy people. Consumerism is linked to anxiety, lousy relationships and poor mental and physical health. But let's not get too self-righteous quite yet. We may not derive our core sense of self-worth from what we buy and own, but does that mean we're immune to all the cues in our consumer culture?
