No Rest for Authors! In our modern world, work can follow you anywhere, even on a working vacation! In truth, I met some great people in Florida!
Here is what I am reading today:
“The research, published in Evolutionary Psychology, confirmed the prediction that participants who believed they were being watched, although possibly not conscious of that thought, would express greater disapproval of moral transgressions, than those did not.
The increased expression of disapproval is attributed to people’s sensitivity to perceptions of their own reputation.”
“The series of studies, “Peacocks, Porsches and Thorstein Veblen: Conspicuous Consumption as a Sexual Signaling System,” was conducted with nearly 1,000 test subjects and published recently in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
“This research suggests that conspicuous products, such as Porsches, can serve the same function for some men that large and brilliant feathers serve for peacocks,” said Jill Sundie, assistant professor of marketing at UTSA and lead author of the paper.”
“In the past, many researchers have believed that testing is good for memory, but only for the exact thing you are trying to remember: so-called “target memory.” If you’re asked to recall the Lithuanian equivalent of an English word, say, you will get good at remembering the Lithuanian, but you won’t necessarily remember the English. Vaughn wondered whether practice testing might boost other types of memory too. It does.”
“Human affective systems evolved from mammalian affective systems, and when mammals are young and incapable of thinking, their brain systems have to make these pups able to perform the ‘correct’ behavior,” write authors Dan King (NUS Business School, Singapore) and Chris Janiszewski (University of Florida, Gainesville). One way the brain encourages correct behavior is to use the mammal’s affective state to change the pleasure response to major sensory channels.“
