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Study shows NFL fans get fatter after their team loses
CBS Sports: Keep a close eye on your cholesterol, Raiders fans. A new study shows that fans of losing NFL teams tend to be more obese than fans of winning teams. Via For the Win's Nate Scott, we learn of Pierre Chandon, the L'Oreal Chaired Professor of Marketing, Innovation and Creativity at INSEAD Business Schoool, and his study of NFL fans and their chunkalicious responses to defeat. “One day after a defeat, Americans eat 16 percent more saturated fat, and 10 percent more calories," Chandon writes. "But on the day after a victory of their favorite team, then it's the opposite. They eat more healthily. They eat 9 percent less saturated fat, and 5 percent fewer calories.
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Days late, dollars short
The Economist: There is a distinctive psychology of scarcity, argues Mr Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir, a psychologist at Princeton University. People’s minds work differently when they feel they lack something. And it does not greatly matter what that something is. Anyone who feels strapped for money, friends, time or calories is likely to succumb to a similar “scarcity mindset”. This mindset brings two benefits. It concentrates the mind on pressing needs. It also gives people a keener sense of the value of a dollar, minute, calorie or smile. The lonely, it turns out, are better at deciphering expressions of emotion. Likewise, the poor have a better grasp of costs.
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Everyday Sadists Take Pleasure In Others’ Pain
People who score high on a measure of sadism seem to derive pleasure from behaviors that hurt others, and are even willing to expend extra effort to make someone else suffer, a study shows.
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Perspectives Looks Back Over 25 Years of Science
As APS celebrates its 25th anniversary, the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science is featuring a series of special sections that take a look at how the field has changed over the last 25 years. The special section in the September issue includes articles that explore psychology as a multilevel science, advances in eyewitness science, the emergence of relationship science, and developments in the area of cognitive psychology. 25 Years Toward a Multilevel Science Marilynn B.
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The Influence of Children’s Personalities on Interventions for Aggression
All children are aggressive at one time or another; however, a small group of children display pervasive and unremitting levels of aggression. Children who display high levels of aggression are at risk for a number of negative outcomes such as school failure, drug use, and delinquency. Interventions to reduce aggressive behavior are often instituted at a young age, as nipping this behavior in the bud can prevent children from developing persistent conduct problems later in life. In the past decade, much research has been conducted on the effectiveness of interventions with children.
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Nourishment for impoverished thinking
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? It’s true that the poor do make poor choices, but not because of any personal failings. Poverty breeds lousy decision making. Think about it: Good decisions require attention and reasoning and mental discipline. How do you muster those powers when you are preoccupied with, well, being poor?
