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Politicians’ Hand Gestures Reveal Their Good and Bad Thoughts

September 13, 2010 coms 0

Politicians’ gestures can reveal their thoughts, according to a new study published in the open-access journal PLoS ONE. ‘In laboratory tests, right- and left-handers associate positive ideas like honesty and intelligence with their dominant side of space and negative ideas with their non-dominant side’, says Daniel Casasanto of the MPI for Psycholinguistics.

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‘The Friend of My Enemy Is My Enemy’: Virtual Universe Study Proves 80-Year-Old Theory on How Humans Interact

September 10, 2010 coms 0

A new study analyzing interactions between players in a virtual universe game has for the first time provided large-scale evidence to prove an 80 year old psychological theory called Structural Balance Theory. The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that individuals tend to avoid stress-causing relationships when they develop a society, resulting in more stable social networks.

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September 11 Text Messages Reveal Emotional Timeline, Says Researchers

September 7, 2010 coms 0

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 have been called the defining moment of our time. Thousands of people died and the attacks had huge individual and collective consequences, including two wars. But less is known about the immediate emotional reactions to the attacks. For a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researchers analyzed text messages sent on September 11, 2001 for emotional words. They found spiking anxiety and steadily increasing anger through that fateful day.

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Health Behaviors Influenced By Social Networks

September 2, 2010 coms 0

Scientists have long thought that social networks, which features many distant connections, or “long ties,” produces large-scale changes most quickly. But in a new study, Damon Centola, an assistant professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, has reached a different conclusion: Individuals are more likely to acquire new health practices while living in networks with dense clusters of connections — that is, when in close contact with people they already know well.

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People Over 50 Prefer Negative Stories About Young People

September 1, 2010 coms 0

When given a choice, older people prefer to read negative news, rather than positive news, about young adults, a new study suggests. In fact, older readers who chose to read negative stories about young individuals actually get a small boost in their self-esteem, according to the results.

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Today’s superheroes send wrong image to boys, say researchers

August 31, 2010 coms 0

Watching superheroes beat up villains may not be the best image for boys to see if society wants to promote kinder, less stereotypical male behaviors, according to psychologists who spoke Sunday at the 118th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association.

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Video Gaming Magazines Influence Muscularity Among Boys

August 30, 2010 coms 0

In a study to be published this summer in the journal Body Image, University of Illinois researchers discovered that exposure to video gaming magazines has a stronger influence on preadolescent boys’ drive for muscularity, or desire for muscle mass, than does exposure to magazines that depict a more realistic muscular male-body ideal.

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Men In Red Are More Attractive to Women [Study]

August 18, 2010 coms 0

Men have long found the idea of women in red an alluring idea, but a new study by the University of Rochester, found that that feeling is mutual. The study, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, found women were more attracted to men wearing red.

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Modesty Important for Women, But Not for Men [Study]

August 12, 2010 coms 0

We all know that men and women are expected to carry themselves differently and this new study by Rutgers’ University on modesty only reinforces that point. Turns out, it is more attractive for men to have little modesty, but necessary for women to have a great deal of modesty.