Women are picky. The general idea is that females invest more in reproduction, and, as such, need to be more selective about their partners. This purportedly has its root in anisogamy, a complicated word to say that egg cells are more expensive to produce, and lesser in number, than sperm cells. Basically, females have to use their egg cells carefully, while men can go around and generously spread their sperm. […]

Two main suggestions:

• Sexy sons: choosy females pick sexy males to mate with. Their offspring inherits both the preference and the attractiveness. And a positive feedback loop follows.

• Good genes: male attractiveness signals additional quality, or more precisely breeding value for fitness. The sons of attractive males inherit these qualities along with the ‘being sexy.’ Here, there is a link between attractiveness and ‘quality.’

{ The Beast, the bard and the bot | Continue reading }

images { 1. Phillip Pearstein | 2 }

Tel Aviv University research finds that smart phone users develop new concepts of privacy in public spaces. […]

Smart phone users are 70 percent more likely than regular cellphone users to believe that their phones afford them a great deal of privacy, says Dr. Toch, who specializes in privacy and information systems. These users are more willing to reveal private issues in public spaces. They are also less concerned about bothering individuals who share those spaces, he says.

{ American Friends of TAU | Continue reading }

painting { Rogier van der Weyden, Portrait of a Woman, c. 1460 }

The explosive lawsuit alleges on January 16, 2012, Travolta picked up the masseur in a black Lexus SUV, which had “Trojan condoms in the console of the vehicle” and the duo went to a room at the Beverly Hills Hotel. […] The masseuse tried to complete the deep tissue massage, but the lawsuit alleges, “Travolta, had removed his draping and was masturbating. Travolta’s penis was fully erect, and was roughly 8 inches in length, and his pubic hair was wirey and unkempt. […] The documents state that Travolta said there was a Hollywood actress staying at the hotel that “wanted three way sex, and wanted to be double penetrated.” Travolta said they could have that later, but first they needed to have sex together before calling her, so this way they would be in-sync with each other sexually.

{ Radar | Continue reading }

“Illusory Power Transference” is the academic name for feeling powerful due to a superficial connection to a powerful person, such as having once been in the same room.

{ OvercomingBias | Continue reading }

Poltergeists are defined as paranormal, mischievous ghostly presences that appear to a select group of people. As paranormal entities, they are beyond investigation by rational scientific means. Or are they? Odd sensations, visions, felt presences, out-of-body experiences, etc. have all been explained by unusual brain activity. Hence, neuroscientists should consider that poltergeists exist in the mind of the perceiver, not as a physical reality in the external world.

A new paper by parapsychologist William G. Roll and colleagues reported on the case of a woman who experienced paranormal phenomenon after suffering a head injury. (…)

[After the head injury,] …the relationship with her first husband deteriorated because he insisted she was not the same person. According to her reports one night he tried to kill her. The anomalous phenomena began that night and have been intermittent since that time. Their intensity and frequency have increased during the last 2–3 years.

EEG recordings revealed chronically abnormal activity at a right temporal lobe electrode.

{ The Neurocritic | Continue reading }

Sexual selection is a variant of natural selection in which one gender prefers certain traits be present in their mate. Thus individuals with those attractive traits will have a high reproductive success, spreading their genes (and the trait) through the population.

This can also cause the attractive trait to become greatly exaggerated, so as to exploit the other gender’s preference for it. This is the process which resulted in the large, elaborate tails of peacocks.

Given the influence sexual selection can have on a population, researchers started to wonder if there were any traits in humans that were the product of mate-choice preferences. (…)

Women, it would seem, look for men who are taller than they are (but only by ~9%) and with a good covering of chest hair. Men look for women who are shorter and with a 0.7 waist-hip ratio (i.e. the waist is 70% the width of the hip).

Curiously, women also liked men having a specific waist-hip ratio. Even more curiously, they liked the same (0.7) figure men liked.

{ EvoAnth | Continue reading }

Efron observed the conversations of 1,250 Lithuanian and Polish Jews and 1,100 Italians from Naples and Sicily in and around New York City. In each group, about half were recent immigrants and half were “assimilated.” They were observed in a range of settings: parks, markets, social clubs, schools, universities, Catskills resorts, Adirondack hotels, and the Saratoga racetrack. He recorded five thousand feet of film and, with an artist, produced two thousand sketches of spontaneous gestures.

The results paint a picture of a stereotype, but a lovingly detailed and specific one. According to Efron, Jews used a limited range of motion, mostly from the elbow. Their movements were more angular, jabbing, intricate, and vertical than those of the Italians, who used larger, smoother, more curved lateral gestures which pivoted from the shoulder. Jews tended to use one hand, Italians both. Italians touched their own bodies, Jews touched the bodies of their conversational partners.

{ Lapham’s Quaterly | Continue reading }

Are straight people born that way? (…) We have to start with a more fundamental question: What do we mean when we say someone is “straight”? At the most basic level, we seem to be imagining female bodies that are specifically sexually aroused by male bodies, and vice versa.

Laboratory studies (…) suggest that, while such people probably do exist — at least in North America, where many sexologists have focused their attentions – it’s not uncommon for straight-identified people to be at least a little aroused by the idea of same-sex relations.

The media has tended to broadcast the news that gay-identified men and straight-identified men have quite discernible arousal patterns when they are shown various kinds of sexual stimuli. And that’s true. But if you look closely at the data, you’ll see that most straight-identified men do tend to show a little bit of arousal across sex categories (as do gay-identified men).

{ The Atlantic | Continue reading }

painting { Ingres, Madame Moitessier, 1856 }

Albert Tirrell and Mary Bickford had scandalized Boston for years, both individually and as a couple, registering, as one observer noted, “a rather high percentage of moral turpitude.” Mary, the story went, married James Bickford at 16 and settled with him in Bangor, Maine. They had one child, who died in infancy. Some family friends came to console her and invited her to travel with them to Boston. Mary found herself seduced by the big city. (…)

James came to Boston at once, found Mary working in a house of ill repute on North Margin Street and returned home without her. She moved from brothel to brothel and eventually met Tirrell, a wealthy and married father of two. He and Mary traveled together as man and wife, changing their names whenever they moved, and conducted a relationship as volatile as it was passionate; Mary once confided to a fellow boarder that she enjoyed quarreling with Tirrell because they had “such a good time making up.” (…)

Choate kept that case in mind while plotting his defense of Tirrell, and considered an even more daring tactic: contending that Tirrell was a chronic sleepwalker. If he killed Mary Bickford, he did so in a somnambulistic trance and could not be held responsible.

{ Smithsonian | Continue reading }

photo { Linus Bill }

Analyses suggest that a personality high in agreeableness is associated with lower earnings. This might seem surprising, given that agreeableness is associated with interpersonal effectiveness, increasingly important in jobs. But at least it helps explain why women experience pay inequality, given that women tend to have warm qualities; if they want to earn more, they better toughen up.

A recent study seeks to uncover more about why disagreeableness breeds pay, and why the situation for women is rather different.

{ BPS | Continue reading }

related { Woman Fired After Giving Up Kidney to Save Boss’s Life }

Oh, Sallie Mae. Like a foxy country girl in some daisy dukes. Healthy and sun-kissed Miss Sallie Mae from Georgia, from that bountiful South where time moves slow and the fields just can’t help but produce. 

{ Evan Calder Williams/TNI | Continue reading }

images { 1 | 2 }

In psychology, this phenomenon is called “gaslighting,” a term that has its origins in a 1938 play (and a 1940 film) called Gas Light, where a man leads his wife to believe that she is insane in order to steal from her. (…)

A classic example of psychological gaslighting is the following: Spouse A has an extramarital affair and tries to cover it up. Spouse B finds a suspicious text message in A’s phone and expresses concern to A. A then accuses B of being paranoid, and this pattern repeats every time B raises concerns. Eventually B begins to question his or her own perceptions.

{ Psych Your Mind | Continue reading }

image { Steven Pippin }

Homophobia is more pronounced in individuals with an unacknowledged attraction to the same sex and who grew up with authoritarian parents who forbade such desires, a series of psychology studies demonstrates. The research is the first to document the role that both parenting and sexual orientation play in the formation of intense and visceral fear of homosexuals. (…)

“In many cases these are people who are at war with themselves and they are turning this internal conflict outward,” adds co-author Richard Ryan, professor of psychology at the University of Rochester who helped direct the research.

{ University of Rochester | Continue reading }

photo { Jessica Eaton }

The study, reported in The Journal of Neuroscience [2007], provides the first direct evidence that humans, like rats, moths and butterflies, secrete a scent that affects the physiology of the opposite sex. (…)

He found that the chemical androstadienone — a compound found in male sweat and an additive in perfumes and colognes — changed mood, sexual arousal, physiological arousal and brain activation in women.

Yet, contrary to perfume company advertisements, there is no hard evidence that humans respond to the smell of androstadienone or any other chemical in a subliminal or instinctual way similar to the way many mammals and even insects respond to pheromones, Wyart said. Though some humans exhibit a small patch inside their nose resembling the vomeronasal organ in rats that detects pheromones, it appears to be vestigial, with no nerve connection to the brain.

“Many people argue that human pheromones don’t exist, because humans don’t exhibit stereotyped behavior. Nonetheless, this male chemical signal, androstadienone, does cause hormonal as well as physiological and psychological changes in women.” (…)

Sweat has been the main focus of research on human pheromones, and in fact, male underarm sweat has been shown to improve women’s moods and affect their secretion of luteinizing hormone, which is normally involved in stimulating ovulation.

Other studies have shown that when female sweat is applied to the upper lip of other women, these women respond by shifting their menstrual cycles toward synchrony with the cycle of the woman from whom the sweat was obtained.

{ ScienceDaily | Continue reading }

Red seems to affect us in a way that other colors don’t. (…)

Johns and colleagues test an hypothesis for why red on women looks so attractive to me. The hypothesis is that red is sexy because it reminds men of… lady parts. (…) One version of the hypothesis is that as females are approaching ovulation, the vulva becomes more red than is is at other points in the cycle.

If this “red is code for female sex organs” hypothesis is true, you might predict that men would judge female genitals as more attractive as they became more red.

Explicit images of anatomically normal, un-retouched, nonpornographic, similarly-orientated female genitals were surprisingly difficult to obtain… We selected photographs that … did not contain other, potentially distracting, objects (fingers, sex toys, piercings etc.) and were hairless to account for current fashion.

They showed their pictures to 40 males. Most of the men were in their 20s. (…) They rated the attractiveness of each image.

The ratings of attractiveness were the exact opposite of those predicted by the signalling hypothesis. The reddest images were rated the least attractive.

The authors are then tasked to come up with an hypothesis as to why redness is less attractive. Their suggestion is that red is suggestive of menstrual blood.

{ NeuroDojo | Continue reading }

The researchers in charge of performing psychometric testing recently made an interesting observation: if they wear a white coat when interacting with the participants (and their parents), they receive more respect.

According to a study by Hajo Adam and Adam Galinsky of Norwestern University, it’s possible that our psych testers not only look more professional, but subconsciously feel more professional. In other words, the clothes may literally make the man (or woman).

{ Gaines, on brains | Continue reading }

images { 1 | 2 }

{ When the authorities send a subpoena to Facebook for your account information, what do they receive? }

related:

This paper reports a study which investigated adult social activity on Facebook. The data was drawn from an online survey (N = 758) and 18 in-depth research sessions (semistructured interviews and verbal protocols). The research explored the function of Facebook in making contact, maintaining contact and facilitating extended contact with online friends and the concept of ‘facestalking’. It also examined how the specific tools of Facebook (wall postings, status updates, events and photos) are used to communicate and socialise. The research concludes that Facebook strengthens existing friendships by supplementing traditional forms of communication (face to face, telephone). Also, participation in the Facebook community enables efficient and convenient contact to be maintained with a larger and more diverse group of acquaintances, thus extending potential social capital.

{ IJETS | Continue reading }

A Wall Street Journal examination of 100 of the most popular Facebook apps found that some seek the email addresses, current location and sexual preference, among other details, not only of app users but also of their Facebook friends. One Yahoo service powered by Facebook requests access to a person’s religious and political leanings as a condition for using it. The popular Skype service for making online phone calls seeks the Facebook photos and birthdays of its users and their friends. (…)

Facebook requires apps to ask permission before accessing a user’s personal details. However, a user’s friends aren’t notified if information about them is used by a friend’s app. An examination of the apps’ activities also suggests that Facebook occasionally isn’t enforcing its own rules on data privacy.

{ WSJ | Continue reading }

There is no shortage of advice on how to recover from a bad break-up: keep busy, don’t contact your ex, go out with friends. (…) But according to a new study, something important is missing from this list. (…)

“It is just something that happens these days.” (…) This statement expresses a sense of common humanity, or recognition that suffering is part of the human experience, which is considered a fundamental part of self-compassion. (…)

“It was all my fault. (…) I know I did it all wrong.” In contrast to the first statement, this one includes a high degree of self-judgment, with no evidence of self-kindness. (…)

Results indicated that participants who were judged to be higher in self-compassion showed less distress at the beginning of the study and at the nine-month mark, while those low in self-compassion showed a greater increase in distress between six and nine months.

{ Psych Your Mind | Continue reading }

photo { Sam Haskins }

What would we do if we encountered an alien race? As it turns out, the question has garnered considerable academic thought since the first reported flying saucer sighting in 1947, not just as an inquiry in human psychology, but also as a way of contemplating what aliens might do if they ever found us. From astronomers to ufologists to anthropologists, scholars who have contemplated the various “contact scenarios” believe our course of action would strongly depend on the relative intelligence level of the newfound beings. Here, we outline what would happen if we encountered primitive, humanlike, and godlike aliens. (…)

In 1950 the U.S. military developed a procedure called “Seven Steps to Contact,” laying out the logical steps we would take upon discovering creatures with roughly human-level sentience. According to the steps, we would begin with remote surveillance and data gathering, and would eventually move on to covert visitations with the goal of gauging the performance characteristics of the aliens’ vehicles and weaponry.

{ LiveScience | Continue reading }

related { Alien Abductions May Be Vivid Dreams, Study Shows }

photo { Laerke Posselt }

Family income is associated with student achievement, but careful studies show little causal connection.  School factors – teacher quality, school accountability, school choice – have bigger causal impacts than family income per se, according to a new analysis by Harvard’s Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG).

{ EducationNext | Continue reading }

Conventional wisdom tells us that in the business world, “you are who you know” — your social background and professional networks outweigh talent when it comes to career success.

But according to a Tel Aviv University researcher, making the right connection only gets your foot in the door. Your future success is entirely up to you. (…)

When intelligence and socio-economic background are pitted directly against one another, intelligence is a more accurate predictor of future career success, he asserts.

{ American Friends of Tel Aviv University | Continue reading }