Green-Eyed Monster: Why Women Can be Literally Blinded By Jealousy

Green-eyed-monster: jealousy, of the type enjoyed by Gabrielle and Carlos in Desperate Housewives, has been shown to affect women's ability to see

From The Daily Mail:

It's hard to see things clearly when you fall victim to the green-eyed monster. And sometimes jealousy can make it hard to see at all.

Researchers found that a woman can fail to notice things in front of her when distracted by the possibility that her husband or boyfriend is attracted to someone else.

Psychologists suggest this reveals something profound about social relationships and perception.

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Moral Judgments Can Be Altered

In a new study, researchers disrupted activity in the right temporo-parietal junction by inducing a current in the brain using a magnetic field applied to the scalp. They found that the subjects' ability to make moral judgments that require an understanding of other people's intentions -- for example, a failed murder attempt -- was impaired. (Credit: Graphic by Christine Daniloff)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 30, 2010) — MIT neuroscientists have shown they can influence people's moral judgments by disrupting a specific brain region -- a finding that helps reveal how the brain constructs morality.

To make moral judgments about other people, we often need to infer their intentions -- an ability known as "theory of mind." For example, if a hunter shoots his friend while on a hunting trip, we need to know what the hunter was thinking: Was he secretly jealous, or did he mistake his friend for a duck?

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Money DOES Buy You Happiness... If your Friends Have Less Of It

Happy: But money counts for little unless you are richer than your friends

From The Daily Mail:

Money makes you happy - but only if you have lots more than your friends and neighbours.

Owning the house of your dreams, the car you always longed for and having millions in the bank doesn't stop that desire to keep up with the Joneses, researchers have found.

And if the Joneses have more than you do, you'll be miserable.

It seems envy at being lower in the social pecking order tarnishes the satisfaction of being well off.

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Happiness Is ... Making More Money Than The Next Guy

From Live Science:

One key to happiness might be whether you make more than your peers, regardless of whether that income is six figures or just a mediocre take-home, a new study finds.

This concept of "doing better than the Joneses" is well established among children: A toy gets ditched as soon as a shinier toy in the hands of another child is spotted. But some researchers have often thought that when it comes to adults and money, things works differently, in that the more money one has, regardless of how it stacks up, the more resources can be acquired to generate happiness.

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Titanic vs. Lusitania: How People Behave In A Disaster

An illustration of the Titanic as it sank in the Atlantic Ocean
Time & Life Pictures / Getty

From Time Magazine:

It's hard to remember your manners when you think you're about to die. The human species may have developed an elaborate social and behavioral code, but we drop it fast when we're scared enough — as any stampeding mob reveals.

That primal push-pull is at work during wars, natural disasters and any other time our hides are on the line. It was perhaps never more poignantly played out than during the two greatest maritime disasters in history: the sinking of the Titanic and the Lusitania. A team of behavioral economists from Switzerland and Australia have published a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that takes an imaginative new look at who survived and who perished aboard the two ships, and what the demographics of death say about how well social norms hold up in a crisis.

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Altitude Could Limit Some Olympic Performances

From Live Science:

For the athletes competing now in the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, altitude can be an important factor in making it to the medal stand, but not for the reasons you might think.

And the impact of altitude in the Vancouver Olympics could mean we won't see many records set in sports such as speed skating.

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Only In Vegas: The Magic Carpets Designed To Keep You Awake And Gambling

The outrageous carpets do nothing to distract gamblers at Las Vegas's most popular casinos

From The Daily Mail:

Las Vegas is well-known for being the city that never sleeps as gamblers are encouraged to spend their money around the clock.

Now a new set of photographs has revealed that even the garish carpets that line the hotels and casinos have an important part to play.

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Why People Fake Illness

From Live Science:

In 2008, a Baltimore woman named Dina Leone shared shocking news with her friends and family: she had been diagnosed with stomach cancer. She wrote blogs and Facebook notes, updating everyone on her treatment and progress. The 37-year-old mother of two received more than an outpouring of support and get-well cards; she also got money to help pay for her treatments and fulfill her dying wishes.

It was all very tragic – and it was also a hoax. Police investigated her claims and soon her story unraveled when the hospitals she claimed to have visited had no record of her. Leone eventually admitted that she had pretended to be sick for over three years. She was recently indicted on charges of theft and conspiracy.

But why would someone lie about having cancer?

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Weekends Are Good For You, Study Finds

From Live Science:

Just about everybody – even workaholics – should look forward to the weekend, when most people get a mood boost, a new study suggests.

Participants in the study often reported better moods, greater vitality, and fewer aches and pains from Friday evening through Sunday afternoon as compared with the rest of the week.

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Why The Powerful Lie, Cheat And Steal

Photo: Tiger Woods may have uncanny concentration when he's on the green, but that same focus doesn't appear to apply off the golf course. Credit: AP Photo

From Discovery News:

Cheating, lying and stealing certainly aren't new social practices, but they were apparently fashionable in 2009.

The year saw a string of scandals involving high-profile personalities from politicians (Gov. Mark Sanford, Sen. John Ensign, Rep. William Jefferson), to corporate executives (Bernie Madoff, Raj Rajaratnam, Allen Stanford) to one golfer pictured here.

Why are powerful people seemingly so powerless to prevent their own transgressions? A new study published in the upcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science offers some explanation.

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Michelangelos Make Smart Lovers

From The Science Blog:

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Is that really Bob? You've seen him hundreds of mornings for the last 10 years at local coffee shops. Since he started dating Sara, he looks you in the eye -- and smiles. Sara takes every opportunity to let coffee shop cronies know that Bob is her guy and to gush about how funny he is. And he is. Who knew?

Think of Sara like Michelangelo chipping away at a block of marble to release the ideal figure slumbering within.

A new international review of seven papers on "the Michelangelo phenomenon" shows that when close partners affirm and support each other's ideal selves, they and the relationship benefit greatly.

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Real Loneliness Can Do Serious Damage

Tom Courtenay in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.
Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

From The Guardian:

Neuroscientist John Cacioppo says social pain is akin to physical pain. So what can be done to make it better?

'Tis the season to be lonely. Half a million pensioners will spend Christmas Day alone, while nearly three in five people over 55 will be wishing they could see more of their family. This isn't just a seasonal or British phenomenon. At any given time, around one in five Americans – 60 million people – feel so isolated that it makes them seriously unhappy.

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Extreme Fear: Could You Handle It?

Illustration: Matt Murphy

From The Guardian:

When disaster strikes, whether you live or die depends on how you react to the crisis…

If you suddenly found yourself in a life-or-death crisis and had to make a decision that would either save your life or end it, are you confident you'd make the right one? People in the state of Victoria, Australia, faced just such a decision in February and March this year. For five weeks, catastrophic brush fires swept across the state. Government policy held that when fire threatened a neighbourhood, homeowners were to make a choice: stay and fight to save their houses, or evacuate early. They were explicitly instructed not to wait until the flames were close. Trying to run from an advancing wildfire is the surest way to die in it.

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Have No Fear – Breakthrough Offers Hope To Phobia Sufferers

12% of Britons fear spiders, whilst 13% fear heights. ALAMY

From The Independent:

Scientists manage to block scary thoughts selectively – without the use of mind-altering drugs

Fear has been eliminated from the human mind for the first time in a series of pioneering experiments that could open the way to treating a range of phobias and anxiety disorders with behavioural therapy rather than drugs.

Scientists have selectively blocked thoughts of fear by interfering with the way memories are "reconsolidated" by the brain. It could lead to new ways of treating the thousands of people whose lives are crippled by fear and anxiety relating to phobias and memories that go back many years.

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Skunk (Marijuana) Linked To Huge Increase In Risk Of Psychotic Disease

Skunk worse than ordinary hash Photo: Getty

From The Telegraph:

People who smoke the highly potent form of cannabis known as skunk are almost seven times more likely to develop a psychotic illness than those who use the traditional strength drug, a new study shows for the first time.

The results are considered particularly worrying as skunk now accounts for around 80 per cent of the street market in cannabis in the United Kingdom.

Scientists at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London made the discovery after studying admissions to hospital for psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia, paranoia and serious depression.

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The Loneliness Of Three Degrees Of Separation

From New Scientist:

John Cacappio of the University of Chicago and his colleagues reckon that loneliness can spread through society like an infection.

Their study, published in this month's issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, draws on a large group of people living in a town in Massachusetts that had already been assigned as part of a heart health study.

This group of around 5,000 were given questionnaires to assess their loneliness every four years or so, enabling the researcher to track any "spread" in this gloomy emotion.

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Money Does Not Make You Happy 'But Therapy Does'

From The Telegraph:

Money does not make you happy but therapy does, academics have discovered.

A massive pay rise or even winning the National Lottery may not offer as much joy as talking about your problems, researchers have found.

They warn that often we overestimate how much money will increase our happiness.

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Just Thinking of a Loved One Can Reduce Physical Pain

From Live Science:

They say love hurts. But it can also make people feel better.

In an offbeat study, researchers applied "moderately painful heat stimuli" to the forearms of 25 women while each held the hand of her boyfriend, the hand of a male stranger, or squeezed a ball. The women reported less pain when holding their boyfriends' hands.

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Pursuit Of Pleasure Drives Human Decisions

Chemical in the brain plays a key role in choices

From The Telegraph:

The pursuit of pleasure drives the everyday decisions that direct people's lives, research suggests.

Scientists discovered that a reward chemical in the brain plays a key role in choices such as where to go on holiday.

They believe the ''pleasure principle'' may be at the heart of most human decision making.

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Happiest States Are Wealthy And Tolerant

From Live Science:

Though you might not be able to run away from your problems, moving to another state could be good for the soul. New research suggests U.S. states with wealthier, better educated and more tolerant residents are also happier on average.

The reasoning is that wealthy states can provide infrastructure and so it's easier for residents to get their needs met. In addition, states with a greater proportion of artists and gays would also be places where residents can freely express themselves.

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