Data Mine: From Warding off Death to the Sandman

How we use celebs to preserve ourselves, stay awake behind the wheel and find love.

By Matthew Hutson, published on September 01, 2008 - last reviewed on October 21, 2008

Existentialism: Elvis Is in the Building

Fan clubs keep the Grim Reaper at bay.

We obsess over celebrities for numerous reasons: respect, voyeurism, boredom. Add another to the list: fear of death. Researchers have found that reminding American subjects of their own mortality extends their estimations of how long 52 famous people, living and dead, would be remembered by future generations. And the icons' perceived staying power matched how well people thought they represented American values.

When pondering your finite existence, you grasp for symbolic immortality by identifying with your surrounding culture—and those who embody its ideals. When they die, their memory lives on, and, by proxy, so does yours. "Famous people provide existential stamina," says Pelin Kesebir, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign researcher who presented these findings at a conference.

In another study, subjects discounted the risk of a plane crash depending on how well the hypothetical celebrity onboard represented their culture's values. Kesebir and collaborator Chi-Yue Chiu suggest that our fear of the great nothingness beyond boosts not only celebs' symbolic immortality, but also (at least in our heads) their physical immortality.

If you're wondering whose memorabilia to invest in for your descendants, Kesebir and Chiu's data reveal some clues. Near the top of their list of memorable Americans are Martin Luther King Jr. and Bill Gates. Near the bottom: Ted Bundy and Paris Hilton.

Funny Valentines

When your type isn't the prototype

Going after someone who's out of your league is usually a waste of time. But evolution may have provided beta males with a consolation prize: idiosyncratic opinions of women's beauty, which point them askew of the most elite targets. That is, even when they "settle," they don't feel like they're settling.

Glenn Scheyd Jr., a psychologist at Nova Southeastern University, presented data at the Association for Psychological Science's annual meeting suggesting that the more desirable a guy, the more conventional his judgments of which women are hot (or not). He argues that men's mating preferences automatically adjust to what's attainable so they don't waste their breath pursuing lost causes or damage their reputations through serial rejection. "Even though in the real world they probably calculate where they can be most successful," Scheyd says, "even beyond that, their perceptions of who is attractive are actually based to a certain extent on their own desirability." Just to make sure the second-tier studs don't suffer global perceptual kinks, Scheyd tested their preferences in houses, dogs, and other men. Sure enough, the quirky taste was mating-specific.

Overall, women's views are more variable than men's, but ladies don't show increased eccentricity of appetite as they move down the totem pole the way men do. Because guys are relatively unlikely to turn women down, it's less risky for women to hit on even the most prized hotties.

Sleep: Wake-Up Maneuvers

What do you do to prevent nodding off at the wheel? A study published in the Journal of Sleep Research reported people's favorite ways to ward off the sandman. Here's a handful.