I’ve always liked Halloween, and it is a special holiday for our family. Mr. F, of course, cannot pass out sub-standard chocolate having worked for Nestle and Mars, so he invests in full-sized See’s candy bars. That’s a bit of local pride, too, as the See family lived just across Read more…
We reported previously that the Happiness Gap between conservatives and liberals world-wide was continuing to grow, and new data from the Pew Research Center say that October’s gap is the biggest ever. Unlike the previous report, which focused on differences in attitudes towards “social injustice,” the Pew survey was much Read more…
As I sit here and watch my students work on their midterm exams, I feel guilty, and not just because they’re working hard. A study by Jean-Phillipe Chaput and his colleagues (2008) demonstrated that doing intellectually challenging work makes you eat more [1], and my students are likely to go Read more…
Sometimes I actually get to pursue interests outside of biological psychology, and one of my favorite hobbies is the impact of new technologies on behavior. So I jumped at the change to collaborate with Karen on an article for our friends at Good Web Practices. Internet guru David Towers sent Read more…
Social psychologists have known for a long time that how you present options heavily influences decisions. In one such study, people had a choice to earn $20, or to gamble for $50 and risk getting nothing. If you frame the “safe” choice as a $30 loss, people are more likely Read more…