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A New Study Shows How to Boost the Power of Pain Relief, Without Drugs
Placebos reduce pain by creating an expectation of relief. Distractions relieve it by keeping the brain busy. When combined, they make for a potent pain reliever, a study shows.
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Facebook and Twitter ‘more addictive than tobacco and alcohol’
The Telegraph: Resisting the urge to check social networking sites for updates is more difficult than turning down a drink, according to a study of people's everyday desires. The survey of 250 people found that sleep and sex were the two things people most longed for during the day, but that the urges to keep on top of social networks and work were the hardest to resist. In contrast alcohol and tobacco prompted much lower levels of desire despite their reputation for being addictive. Researchers from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in America fitted participants with devices which logged nearly 8,000 reports about people's everyday desires.
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Waaraan kan u het moeilijkst weerstaan? Seks, alcohol, roken of e-mail lezen?
Express.be: Werken en communicatie zijn verslavender dan slapen, seks, alcohol en sigaretten. Dat meldt de website Science Daily op basis van een onderzoek van Roy Baumeister van de Florida State University en Kathleen Vohs van de University of Minnesota bij 205 volwassenen. Die moesten een apparaat op hun lichaam dragen dat tijdens de dag hun verlangens registreerde. Het onderzoek bracht in totaal 7.827 rapporten over individuele verlangens op. Read the whole story: Express.be
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Scaling the heights of power
The Sydney Morning Herald: Want to add a few centimetres to your stature instantly without the help of heels or a hat? Just picture yourself in a situation where you are in charge. Researchers have found those in powerful positions actually consider themselves taller than they really are - by about an inch on average. This effect may have been at work in the aftermath of the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico when BP Chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg controversially declared: "we care about the small people".
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Study of the Day: More Evidence That We’re a Very Needy Species
The Atlantic: PROBLEM: Psychologists already know that humans need to relate with others to be happy and that being left out can be stressful. But just how small a cue is necessary to help someone feel connected? METHODOLOGY: Researchers led by Purdue University's Eric D. Wesselmann carried out a field experiment on campus with 282 randomly selected participants. A research assistant walked along a well-populated path, picked a subject, and either met that person's eyes, met their eyes and smiled, or looked in the direction of the person's eyes but past them, as if looking through air. Read the whole story: The Atlantic
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Science on Swearing
Timothy Jay knows enough about curse words to make any seven-year-old jealous. The Boston Globe has called him the “Doctor of dirty words,” and he frequently appears in news stories — like this one from the Today Show — to discuss swearing. Even though swearing is frowned upon, research that Jay published in Perspectives on Psychological Science shows that profane language is everywhere, and it has an important purpose. Taboo words pack a lot of emotion, and this allows them to achieve certain goals, such as conveying frustration or humor, more easily than non-taboo words.
