Beating Dead Horses and What People Want

So I guess that Indiana University got the rights to some video clips of speed dating in Germany, and they are mining that data just as hard as they possibly can.

As previously reported, Indiana University combed through the footage trying to figure out if speed daters who appeared interested in their partner would indicate genuine interest when they filled out the card at the end of the date. The findings announced that women were tricky and men were easy to read, (but this may only apply in Germany). Building on that dramatic breakthrough, Indiana University looked at the footage again.

Their shocking new finding? You will look to the opinions of others to determine whether or not someone is hot. I'll give you a moment to collect yourself. After all, who would have thought that things are more attractive when it looks like someone else wants them?

To summarize: research subjects found people more attractive if they watched a video of someone else finding them attractive first. That, and Indiana University needs to do something besides watching old clips of German speed-dating sessions.

Chicks Are Inscrutable

And that's not just my opinion. It's backed up by science. Outside observers are better at reading the intentions of men than they are at figuring out what women are thinking.

Indiana University conducted a study where observers watched clips from speed-dating interactions and were asked whether or not the participants were interested in each other. Neither men nor women were particularly effective as observers when it came to figuring out which daters were interested. However, the speed-dating men were easier to "read," and both male and female observers were able to figure out whether the interest on their part was genuine. Speed-dating women were more deceptive, and misled observers as to whether or not they were interested more frequently.

There were some other interesting side notes to this study. For one thing, there was no difference in accuracy on the observers' part whether they viewed a full 30 seconds of interaction or only 10 seconds (Hi there, Malcolm Gladwell!).

The other point worth noting was that while the observations were conducted in Indiana, the actual speed-dating sessions were conducted in Germany. So as far as we know, it's only German men who are transparently easy to read.

Illusions of Value

Ohio State University has determined that when we think about money, the numbers involved can be more important than the value. Some of the subjects were actually making different choices depending on whether they were asked to make decisions about one dollar or 100 cents. In fact, it seemed like they thought that it was better to receive 100 cents than it was to receive a dollar.

To conduct the study, they used that "prisoner's dilemma" game. Are you familiar with it? I'm kind of sick of hearing about it, since it seems like the stock scenario that someone brings up when they want to sound like they know something about psychology or human behavior, but the idea is that you can screw over other "players" in the "game" or not screw them over. The outcome is based on their reactions, but it's a safer bet to screw them over (you can gain more if you don't, but you'd have to trust the other players for that).

Is anyone surprised that participants were more impressed by numbers than they were by actual values? It's kind of like the way that products are advertised for $39.99 instead of $40. Our minds can play tricks on us, so it's always important to think twice before you spend your hard-earned money.

Old drivers WILL kill you.

You know all those stories about old people "confusing" the gas pedal with the brake and mowing down a huge crowd of people? Well, they're just going to get worse.

I used to be a big fan of mandatory, regular vision testing to retain your driver's license. Now it turns out that it's completely worthless. So, even if you make people take vision tests to prove that they can still drive, you're not keeping unsafe older drivers off the road.

It's an argument for buying more SUVs and driving everywhere. If some crazy 90-year-old driver is going to have a senior moment and ram me, I want to be as protected as possible.

Rumors Had It

Right. So, today's post is late because my ISP and I have been having a bit of a disagreement. With crappy, on-again off-again internet access like this, it really makes me wonder why I kill myself trying to pay my bill ontime.

Now, on to the subject of the day: election rumors. Did you hear any? More importantly, did you hear any good ones? I know the election is a polarizing subject, but there were rumors on both sides of the spectrum (secret muslims vs. banning books).

So, they did a follow-up poll asking people if they heard the rumors about the candidates, and if they believed them. Most people reported that they didn't believe them, and that the rumors didn't affect how they voted. Keep in mind that these questions were asked after the election.

Now, do you think that they really weren't swayed by the rumors, or were they just lying so they didn't look stupid?

Touching Costs Extra

What's your favorite possession? Where did you get it? How much is it worth to you?

Now imagine I gave you something cheap, like a keychain. Would you value it as much? You might if you held it for a little while. At the very least, you'd think it was more valuable than a keychain that you hadn't held.

All it takes is 30 seconds. Test subjects that held a coffee mug for 30 seconds showed an attachment to it that was stronger than those who held it for ten seconds, or those who hadn't held it at all. How strong? Well, subjects who held their coffee mugs would aggressively bid for them in an auction setting. So aggressively that four out of seven times the test subjects would pay more than the retail price for the mug, even when they were told how much it was selling for in the nearby campus bookstore.

It's a good reason to figure out what you're going to buy and what you're willing to pay for it before you enter the store, since all it takes is a little physical contact to completely abandon common sense.

What Makes Someone a Jerk?

How do you define what a jerk is? When you get mad at someone for acting like a jerk, is it because they're actually doing awful things, or is it just because they're not being as nice as you would like? The University of Chicago has found out that not only is it better to be nice to people, but we tend to punish people if we feel slighted by them.

Let me explain the experiment. In part 1, you are participating with another guy. The other guy is given $100, and chooses to give you $50. If the roles were reversed afterwards, and you were given another $100 with the option to share some of it with the other guy, how much would you give him?

In part 2, pretend the study gives you $100, but lets the other guy take as much from you as he wants (and he takes $50). When it's your turn, and he gets $100, how much would you take from him?

It turns out that most people felt like they were getting ripped off in part 2, and took as much as they could from the other guy. In part 1, people generally felt grateful and shared their $100 evenly with the other guy to thank him for his earlier generosity.

It's strange because in both situations, the participant ends up with $50 more than he had before. But in the first part, they liked the other person in the study. In the second part, they thought that they were paired with a jerk. They acted accordingly.

Where did you learn that smile?

Or did you know it all along? That grin of triumph, the pout of unhappiness, are you doing it because you've seen other people do it, or because it just feels natural to you? If you hadn't seen other people expressing their emotions, would you still use the same expressions yourself?

Yes, you would. It turns out that some emotional responses are hard-wired, and not something that you learn. A study of blind and sighted athletes showed similar expressions on the faces of both blind and sighted winners (and similar expressions of disappointment on blind and sighted losers). Even athletes who were blind from birth "knew" how to express happiness and disappointment on their faces without seeing other people do it.

I don't really have any jokes to make about it, it's just kind of interesting.

Slap Wraps as an Evolutionary Imperative

See also: acid-wash jeans, beanie babies, and those goddamn Wii Fits that are cropping up everywhere I look. They're all fads, but now Science offers the reason behind our societal obsession (and later abandonment) of the Latest Big Thing: we evolved that way.

The idea is that 1) We see something (a corporate logo). 2) We start to unconsciously associate that something with a "reward" (the product), but we see it infreqently and assume it is scarce. 3) That's when we work to actively acquire it and make it part of our lives. 4) The logo & product are suddenly everywhere, because everybody has one 4) and our unconscious mind decides that this product isn't worth working for, since it can be found so easily all over the place and decide that it must be worthless (Oh, how I wish my subconscious would skip to the part where it decides that a Wii is worthless!). And that, boys and girls, is the life cycle of a fad.

That's all well and good, but after announcing this theory, those maniacs at Rensselaer decide that marketers should use this information to find new ways of pushing things on us subconsciously. That's like announcing that bears should look into getting stainless steel claws. People, they have enough of an advantage already.

Then again, you shouldn't be suprised at the professor who recommended this. It's the same guy who wants to harvest your eyes for robots.

Does Church Make You Feel In Control?

Or does the feeling that you have some control over your life make you more likely to go to church?

The University of Toronto has uncovered a link between religious devotion and the feeling that one has personal control over events in one's life. (Yes, I know that using "one" in that sentence was awkward, but it's tough to convey what they're studying in a simple sentence.)

Do you think you have control over your life? Do you spend much time in church, or observing religious rituals? The UT study expected to find that people who were very involved with religious activities felt as though they had less control. After all, the universe supposed to follow God's plan, right? And who are we to question (or worse yet, influence!) what God does? I think it's fine for people to let the church play an active role in their lives, as long as it's not telling them to do things that are harmful.

The question that it raises for me is which is the cause, and which is the effect. Does going to church help people feel like they are taking more control over the events around them? Or do people go to church because they already think that they can control things in their lives, and they are using prayer to exert that control?

It's as American as not bothering to learn English

You know how you can get stuck with huffy people in elevators who are always yelling at people about how "You're in AMERICA! Speak ENGLISH or LEAVE!"? I used to deal with people like them all the time. Hearing people speak in a foreign language really got them worked up, for reasons I never understood.

So, in Wisconsin, they've found out that people like that would have been just as pissed off in the 1800s as they are today. The idea that immigrants coming to America immediately learned the language and started blending in? Yeah, that's a myth.

In fact, the UW-Madison looked at German settlers in Wisconsin from as far back as 1839, and found that some of them never bothered to learn English. In some cases, they lived in the U.S. for over 50 years and remained "monolingual" (German-speaking only). Even after a law was passed in 1889 requiring schools to be taught in English, school districts would still write to the office of the state school superintendent entirely in German.

It looks like we've been able to carry on since then without witnessing the complete collapse of society. I guess it's not as bad as some people make it out to be.

How to Raise a Victim

I used to call them "disaster magnets" in college. You know, the people who always had things going wrong? Their parents were on disability, their (other) friends committed suicide, they were sexually assaulted, their landlords were going to evict them, their exes were stalking them, etc. They were drama central, and I was always afraid to be around them for extended periods of time in case whatever they had was contagious.

Well, the Archives of General Psychiatry says that they were raised that way. In fact, some families can raise children who are "consistently victimized," and these "chronic victims" usually come from poor backgrounds and have strict parents. You all remember where strict parenting leads, right?

The study is suggesting that these children need "early preventive interventions," and I agree for the most part. The thing is that the research appears to be based on Canadians. I'm not sure if that excludes the results or gives it more validity (ZING! I'm just kidding, Canadians, you're good people with great syrup and a fabulous hockey tradition.)

Why Checklists Are Best Left to Doctors

Checklists have their place as a diagnostic tool, but they're best used by doctors and kept out of the hands of patients. It make sense when you think about it; hypochondriacs will run down the list writing that they have everything from ebola to parkinson's, while other people won't mention the fact that their speech recently became slurred and their left side is completely numb because they see admitting pain as a weakness. But now there's a real study to back it up.

American Medical News (the newspaper of the American Medical Association) is reporting that written screening tests can confuse some patients, and may have their effectiveness limited by "deficiencies in literacy." How deficient? Only about 16% of the 300 men over 40 understood all of the questions on their test survey. Worse yet, 28% misunderstood all of the questions.

That's not even counting the people who suck at math (politely described as "innumerate" in the article). I know I have a tough time even answering the doctor's verbal questions. "Is it a stabbing pain, a shooting pain, or a burning pain?" Hell if I know. Are you going to stab, shoot, or burn me for comparison? I hope not.

Am I the only one who has a tough time explaining what's wrong with me to my doctor?

Attn: Strict Parents

Your kids are totally doin' it.

Nearly 5,000 American teens have been surveyed, and it turns out that strict parenting leads to increased sexual activity.

First, they found out that more than two out of every three American teenagers have had intercourse before the age of 19. Second, they found that familes that children with parents that practice "negative and psychologically controlling behaviors" are more likely to be sexually active.

When looking at the results, it's important not to mistake correlation and causation, but the study notes that parents who try a more democratic method of communication with their children might be making them better-equipped to deal with tough choices.

Good News for Farmers in India

Farmers in India can now get help from the new
plant clinic that has opened there. It's the first of its kind in Southeast Asia, but it hopes to be the first of six, one in each district of Bangladesh.

With all the people that they have in India, crop production is very important. It's heartening to see that they are doing everything they can to keep their food supply secure.