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Cash Rewards Have Less Sway in Collectivistic Cultures
If you’re trying to get someone to do something, what’s the best way to achieve that? Paying them probably comes to mind, and this intuition is a basic tenet of economic theory. In a massive 2018 study, researchers tested 18 ways to motivate people to do a simple task—and found that money worked best. ... A recent study found that a nudge to change social norms about female entrepreneurship in Niger was enough to boost household income as much as giving people money—and it cost far less. Our findings suggest that psychological nudges may be most effective in the places they help people the most.
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Like Likes Like: Partner Preferences May Be Explained by Genetics
A new study suggests that assortative mating, where partners choose a mate like themselves, can be explained by looking at inheritance of traits and the corresponding preferences for those traits.
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Is There Such a Thing As a Good Life? Science Says Yes
What is a good life, and how can we create it? ... “We wanted to capture more explorative, adventurous, creative types of good life,” like those of artists and poets, said Shigehiro Oishi, a psychologist at the University of Chicago who first conceptualized psychological richness. Happiness, Oishi said, can be thought of as a batting average — it goes up and down with good and bad experiences. Psychological richness, on the other hand, is more akin to career highlights — how many interesting stories and experiences we have over our lifetime. ...
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Why Is Everything Spicy Now?
The Carolina Reaper is so hot, it makes jalapeños taste like milk. It’s so hot, it causes people to hallucinate, vomit, pass out, wish they’d never been born. It’s so hot that the guy who invented it—in 2012, by crossbreeding habaneros and Naga Viper peppers, each of which were once thought to be the hottest in the world—has said it tastes like eating “molten lava.” Original-recipe Tabasco sauce is up to 5,000 Scoville heat units; habaneros are up to 350,000. The Reaper has been known to reach 2.2 million. ... To put it generally and reductively, American food has not always been known for embracing spice.
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Does Meditation Come With Side Effects?
A new study examines the extent of adverse effects for those who meditate and pinpoints those most at risk of experiencing them.
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A Common Cognitive Bias Gets a Name, Definition
Doubling-back aversion—defined as the tendency for an individual to forego taking an easier or faster route when it involves retracing steps they’ve already taken on an alternate route—is defined in a new study.
