Psyched!

The science of psych.

by Matthew Hutson

Horoscopes in the East vs. West

Around the world, everyone looks up at the same stars, trying to divine occult truths. But the kind of information they're looking for depends on their personality and on their culture, according to new research. Read More

Spooked by Shakespeare

A short piece by Tad Friend in the January 9 New Yorker demonstrates no fewer than three forms of magical thinking in one column of text. The subject: John Logan, a playwright and screenwriter (recently: Hugo, Rango, Coriolanus). The scene: Bauman Rare Books on Madison Avenue. Read More

Being President Doesn't Hasten Death? Not So Fast!

I must say I am disappointed with what the New York Times has placed front and center on their home page. We have no way of knowing whether the Oval Office shortens life spans. Read More

Self-Control Inspires Trust

A new set of findings reveals not only that people can perceive others' chronic and momentary levels of self-control, but that we use this information to judge others' trustworthiness. Read More

Clenching Your Fists Increases Willpower

According to researchers in a new paper, “Steely muscles can lead to a steely resolve.” Read More

Having to Pee Increases Willpower

Next time you need to discuss something with your boss while not telling him off, or you’re headed to the candy store with a credit card, consider chugging some water beforehand. Your brain will thank your bladder. Read More

The North-South Real Estate Bias

Billy Joel sang about his “uptown girl.” Jim Croce warned us about “bad, bad Leroy Brown,” who lived on the South Side of Chicago, “the baddest part of town.” In some cities, uptown is genuinely nicer than downtown, but might people have a general bias to prefer northern areas over southern in any city? Read More

Don’t Try to Predict Upsets in Tournament Pools

The best way to win your March Madness tournament pool is to stick to the seedings. So why do we try to predict upsets? Read More

“My monkey could have painted that.” Really?

How much better is abstract art than work by kids and monkeys? New research reveals the answer. Read More

WEIRD Science: We Are the Weirdest People in the World

I am one of the weirdest people in the world. You probably are too. It's a scientific fact, now! Read More

Inception is Easier than Extraction

I finally watched inception last night. If you're interested in the mechanics of the subconscious, it's a must-see, both expository and provocative. But it's based on the premise that discreetly planting ideas in people's heads ("inception") is much harder than discreetly extracting ideas. It seems to me that they got this reversed. Read More

To Be Creative, Be Yourself.

Yesterday I went to "Your Brain on the Internet," a discussion that was part of the New Yorker Festival. I got at least one $30 idea out of the deal: The computer scientist Jaron Lanier noted, almost in passing, that the people he knows don't achieve creativity by trying to do something novel. They achieve it by being more themselves. Read More

The Psychology of Penalty Kicks

Yesterday's World Cup Final between Spain and the Netherlands nearly ended in a penalty shootout. If it had, the kickers and keepers would have done well to know about these bits of psychological research on penalty kicks. Read More

What You Touch Changes How You Think

Next time you visit a car dealership, avoid sitting in soft chairs and you'll negotiate a better deal. Science says so. Read More

Washing Your Hands Reduces Cognitive Dissonance

Some decisions just leave you gutted. Your iPad 3G or your finger. Your son or Sophie Jr. Paper or plastic. The only way to alleviate the anxiety that results from saying no to something you want is to convince yourself you didn't really want it in the first place. Now there's a way to reduce the effects of cognitive dissonance: Wash your hands.

It seems like every two years there's at least one story about Olympics superstitions, where athletes' quirky rituals are catalogued and sports psychologists weigh in on whether they think such irrational behavior helps or hurts performance--without any hard evidence. That's about to change. Read More

What Kinds of Articles Go Viral?

For a writer, it can be frustrating to slave over a story and then watch it flop online, slipping into a site's bottomless archives, practically unread. And watching something you write go viral is always a kick, even if it's an off-hand blog post. So it's hard not to keep an eye toward social contagion when conceiving a piece. Read More

American Magazines Make Things Up

Satoshi Kanazawa (not pictured) wrote a blistering blog post last week entitled British Newspapers Make Things Up. Guess what? British media may not be alone. Read More

The Science of How Avatar Is Awesome

The big story in the news about Avatar is that some fans have turned suicidal after watching the film. "The movie was so beautiful and it showed something we don't have here on Earth," a fan-forum moderator told CNN. Read More

CBT = Existentialism?

I've recently come to the conclusion that cognitive behavioral therapy, the empirically-demonstrated gold standard for treating depression and a host of other problems, necessitates a belief in existentialism, a philosophy holding that we live in a meaningless universe.

How can happiness derive from appreciating the fundamental pointlessness of existence? Read More

Duncan Jones on the Moon

The science fiction film Moon premiered at select theaters around the country on Friday. I sat down with the movie's director, Duncan Jones, in March to talk about filmmaking, artificial intelligence, philosophy, theory of mind, science fiction, and his childhood. A condensed rendering of the interview appears in the current issue of Psychology Today. Read More

John Hodgman on Fake Facts

John Hodgman has an answer for everything. What the answer may lack in veracity, or even sense, it makes up for in staid charm and eccentric pseudointellectualism. Read More

Why Dominant Women Enjoy Sexual Submission Fantasies, Part 2

My last post revealed that socially dominant women enjoy sexual submission fantasies more than other women. Why is that?

It's been said that those who are easy-going in real life tend be dominant in the bedroom, and those with type-A personalities like to be submissive. (Maybe you've heard the stories of dominatrixes with titans of industry as regular clients.) But is it true? And if so, what might explain it? Read More

Can yearbook photos predict divorce?

In 2001, psychologists LeeAnne Harker and Dacher Keltner reported that women's personal well-being and marital satisfaction in middle age could be partially predicted by how happy they looked in their yearbook photos at age 21. Divorce, though, could not be predicted. But a new paper to be published in Motivation & Emotion offers an update, and applies to men as well as women. Read More

Do Social Psychologists Cause Priming Research, or Does Priming Research Cause Social Psychologists?

During one of the poster sessions at this year's Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, I spotted a poster titled "Do Social Psychologists Cause Priming Research, or Does Priming Research Cause Social Psychologists?" by Arina K. Bones and Sam Gosling. They use some creative research methods, and their findings may surprise you.

Sex therapists (and sex participants) have been telling men for years that to please a woman he needs to warm her up before taking her for a ride--especially if his ejector seat is on a hair trigger. He should at least check the fluids first, right? New research published in the January issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine calls that advice into question. Read More

Why Jesus Roots for Your Team

I'm fond of a joke by the comedian Jeff Stilson:

"I don't watch football anymore, I gave that up. I got tired of the interviews after the games, because the winning players always give credit to God, and the losers blame themselves. You know, just once I'd like to hear a player say, 'Yeah, we were in the game--until Jesus made me fumble. He hates our team.'" Read More

You Can Spot Couples at a Glance (So You Can Redirect Your Powers of Flirtation Elsewhere.)

You walk into a party and spot a cutie talking to someone else. Are they friends? Siblings? Or a couple? According to a study published in the January issue of Psychological Science, you can suss out in just a few seconds of observation with fairly good accuracy whether your mark is fair game. Read More

Facebook Friends: Too Many, Too Few?

If you have too few "friends" on Facebook, people might think you're a loser. Too many and people might think you're a social slut. Is there an optimal number? Read More