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Why Online Dating Doesn’t Work
Scientific American: Online dating might give you something, but it's probably not a soul mate. Most sites rely on what’s called an "exclusive process"—they use an algorithm to find romantic matches based variables, from interests to fetishes. But now a team of psychologists from five universities has performed a systematic review. And they say that most claims for the power of the "exclusive process" don’t pan out. Their report is in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest. Listen to the podcast here: Scientific American
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Narrative Identity 101
Public Radio International: So if our identities are just stories... what does that mean for our lives, our memories, our mental health? Jonathan Adler is a psychologist who studies narrative identity. He tells Jim Fleming that his research found that our sense of well-being is based on the tone of our internal narratives rather than the stories themselves. Listen to the story: Public Radio International
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Wird man beim Bund zum Mann?
bild der wissenschaft: Das Militär prägt die Persönlichkeit – und umgekehrt "Die Bundeswehr lässt junge Kerle zu echten Männern reifen" – dieser Ausspruch hat offenbar einen wahren Kern, zumindest wenn man "Männlichkeit" auf der Basis traditioneller Rollenerwartungen definiert. Denn laut einer Studie unter Beteiligung von Wissenschaftlern der Universität Tübingen beeinflusst der Wehrdienst in substanzieller Weise, wie verträglich sie im Umgang mit anderen Personen sind. Charakterliche Veränderungen nachzuvollziehen, ist äußerst kompliziert.
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Sleep, Social Cues, and Dissociative Disorders
There’s a good chance that most of your knowledge about dissociative identity disorder (DID) — formerly known as multiple personality disorder — comes from films like Sybil (1976) or The Three Faces of Eve (1957). Sybil and Eve both develop multiple, distinct personalities in order to cope with psychologically traumatic events from their childhoods. But current research has shown that this popular “posttraumatic model” is not accurate. DID may actually arise due to a combination of factors, such as cues from therapists, a fantasy-prone personality, and even irregular sleep patterns.
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The search engine for love
The Sydney Morning Herald: It's easy to play Cupid when both parties are motivated to find love, writes Nicky Phillips. In the winter of 1959, two Stanford University students used the institution's room-size IBM 650 to build a computer program that paired 49 young men, mainly classmates, with 49 local women. Prospective couples answered 30 questions including their age, religion, hobbies and number of children wished for in marriage. The results were fed into the computer which, after nine hours of processing, selected pairs based on the similarity of the responses. The first attempt at computer dating was launched.
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How to Get the Rich to Share the Marbles
The New York Times: Suppose scientists discovered a clump of neurons in the brain that, when stimulated, turned people into egalitarians. This would be good news for Democratic strategists and speechwriters, who could now get to work framing arguments about wealth and taxation in ways that might activate the relevant section of cerebral cortex. This “share-the-spoils” button has been discovered, in a sense, but it may turn out to be harder to press than Democrats might think. Pretend you’re a three-year-old, exploring an exciting new room full of toys.
