What do you think of when you see the color red? Danger, blood, passion, and…dominance, new research suggests. A study to be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science found that that there is evolutionary basis to the human tendency to avoid the color red or act submissively in More
Scientific American: We are prejudiced against all kinds of other people, based on superficial physical features: We react negatively to facial disfigurement; we avoid sitting next to people who are obese, or old, or in a wheelchair; we favor familiar folks over folks that are foreign. If I asked you More
Yahoo: In 1988, singer Bobby McFerrin encouraged an optimistic viewpoint in his hit song “Don’t Worry Be Happy.” Monty Python’s song “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” from their 1979 film Monty Python’s The Life of Brian , also suggested a chipper attitude. Winston Churchill famously said, “A More
Discovery News: Red can symbolize danger, heat and even anger. It’s true: The color’s appearance in road signs, stop lights, labels and flushed cheeks often cautions humans to avoid harm. One study even found that Olympic competitors donning red uniforms were more successful at winning events, suggesting the color intimidates More
Almost universally, red means stop. Red means danger. Red means hot. And analyzing the results in the 2004 Olympics, researchers have found that red also means dominance. Athletes wearing red prevailed more often than those wearing blue, especially in hand-to-hand sports like wrestling. Why? Is it random? Is it cultural More
LiveScience: Alexandra will get an A in class but Amber won’t. At least, that’s what their peers expect, according to a small new study of the meanings encoded in people’s names. “The name you give your kid is sort of a proxy for a whole bunch of things in our More
