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A new study from the Maryland Mind Perception and Morality Lab uncovered some surprising similarities in the inferences we make about semi-nude females and males alike.
Blow Your Mind: The Creepy Cool World of Imaginary Friends
by Robert Lamb | October 18, 2011
Why do small children chat with invisible friends? No, they’re not conversing with ghosts or hosting tea parties for demonic spirits. As it turns out, those creepy cool encounters with unreal beings is just a part of how the human brain works. Think of it as a socialization simulator. And guess what? Even the average adult brain engages in something very similar: social surrogacy. How many of your close friends are fictional?
The Genetic Basis of Type A and Type B Personalities
by Josh Clark | August 25, 2011
I’m a bit jaded by science. Yes, there’s substantial evidence that life can travel from one planet to another, or at least from Mars to Earth, which strongly suggests that life on Earth came from Mars. What’s more, there may be life on Mars still! Yes, but those are just microbes, so… Also, if life on Earth started on Mars, how did life on Mars start? Psychology as a field and a science is almost entirely underwhelming. Virtually every recent finding using MRI machines is deductive at best and maybe even borderline fraudulent, as, really, MRIs just track the infusion of oxygen from one region of the brain to another.
Blow Your Mind: The Cognitive Dissonance of Exorcisms
by Robert Lamb | August 2, 2011
We’re all familiar with exorcism rites from various horror flicks, when serious priests supposedly drive trash-talking demons out of innocent victims. But ignoring the more outrageous and unscientific explanations, what’s really happening in these supernatural showdowns between good and evil? And why are they growing in popularity?
National Breast Cancer Awareness Month doesn’t take place until October, when the pink and Halloween orange will duke it out for color supremacy (I’d put my cash on pink, FYI), but new research (via Forbes) indicates that it’s time to rethink pink.
Why not just hate the pushy psychology brochures?
by Josh Clark | July 11, 2011
Humans don’t like being pushed around, especially when it’s some pencil neck psychology brochure doing the pushing and it’s telling them not to hate another group. This is America, you can’t tell an American who not to hate!
Here’s a disturbing thought: humans are sexually attracted to — guess who! — themselves. At least that’s one of the conclusions you could draw from a 2010 study conducted by psychologist R. Chris Fraley at the University of Illinois. Fraley told Wired magazine, “People appear to be drawn to others who resemble their kin or themselves.”
It is fairly rare when physiology is used to test the claims of psychoanalysis. This is just one of the many, many reasons a study carried out at my almost alma mater, the University of Georgia — while I was attending, even — captured my imagination. Probably most acute, though, was my utter and near complete disbelief that someone actually carried out this study.
The newest episode of Stuff Mom Never Told You tackles a question that my mama certainly never discussed with me: Does semen make you happier? And by you, I mean heterosexual women who are sexually active. Though potentially blush-inducing, Molly and I didn’t cull this question from some crude bathroom humor source…
Are you going around and around (and around) in your head about some run-down, played-out issue you should have beat long ago? Then get outta here. There’s some evidence that travel can — at least temporarily — stop that spinning.
A “transformative” travel experience is one in which you escape the structure and norms of your daily life to immerse yourself in the structure and norms of another life. Within this new-to-you social structure, your brain will likely flood with solutions that would have seemed like a square peg for a round hole within your home structure. You may find it easier to shed bad habits and try out new behaviors.
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