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We make better decisions when we gotta go
MSNBC: In addition to making you walk funny and drop your keys five or six times while trying to get inside your house, a full bladder may actually do something useful: help you make better decisions. According to an upcoming study in Psychological Science, researchers at the University of Twente in the Netherlands performed experiments on more than 500 college students to determine if the inhibitory signals sent to a full bladder would “spill over” into other inhibitory responses, such as holding out for a larger monetary reward rather than going with a smaller immediate one. Read the whole story: MSNBC
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Mate Idealization Makes for Happy Early Marriage
Scientific American: They say that love is blind. And that’s probably for the best. Because a new study shows that people who greatly idealize their spouses have the happiest marriages. For the first few years, anyway. The research appears in the journal Psychological Science. [Sandra Murray et al., "Tempting Fate or Inviting Happiness?: Unrealistic Idealization Prevents the Decline of Marital Satisfaction," link to come] Most people mentally accentuate their partners’ better qualities. At least during courtship. If we didn’t, who would ever tie the knot? But some folks take these fantasies to cartoonish extremes.
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Slamming the fridge: Trumping the booze bias
Imagine you’re at an informal social gathering, and you wander into the kitchen in search of a cold Coke. You open the refrigerator, but there are no soft drinks to be found. Instead, you face a fridge packed with cases of beer and icy quarts of vodka. How do you react? Well, if you’re like most people, you think, “Damn. No Coke,” and look elsewhere or forget it. But if you’re an alcoholic, your reaction—your rapid, visceral reaction—would likely be quite different. You’d be drawn in. Your memory would instantly call up past associations with liquor, and you might even feel a craving—even if you haven’t had a drink in a long time.
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Parenting pressures: Couples exaggerate joy of being parents to hide cost
The Telegraph: Despite their tales of professional sacrifice, financial hardship, and declines in marital satisfaction, many parents continue to insist that their children are an essential source of happiness and fulfillment in their lives, according to the research. A study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that parents create rosy pictures of parental joy as a way to justify the huge investment that kids require. Read the whole story: The Telegraph
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On the Brain: Does a full bladder free your mind?
CNN: This week there's a somewhat bizarre study about whether judgment improves after drinking copious amounts of water, as well as research in Alzheimer's disease and early childhood mental disorders. A little self-control Don't make a hard decision with an empty bladder, suggests new research from the Netherlands. In a study published in the journal Psychological Science, psychologists at the University of Twente demonstrate that bladder control is related to same part of the brain associated with feelings of desire and reward, the Telegraph reports. And people who drank five cups of water in the study made better decisions than those who took small sips.
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Am I Safe Here?: How People With HIV/AIDS Perceive Hidden Prejudices in Their Communities
People in marginalized groups, such as the disabled or racial minorities, feel stigmatized—condemned, feared, or excluded—when other people stigmatize them. That’s obvious. But they can also feel stigma when nobody blatantly discriminates against them or says a negative word. These folks aren’t paranoid, suggests a new study of HIV-positive people and their communities to be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association of Psychological Science. Rather, they’re picking up subtle clues from their communities.
