Science Of Us
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It Makes Psychological Sense If You Weirdly Care a Lot About Brangelina’s Divorce
Admit it, you were sad.
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‘Muscle Confusion’ Is Mostly a Myth
Recently, there’s been a surge in the popularity of workout programs like Bodypump, P90x, and ClassPass, all of which are based on “muscle confusion,” or the premise that constantly switching up your workout routine — i.e., “confusing” your muscles — is the pathway to fitness gains.
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Here’s the Science of the Happy Cry
As it turns out, there are a couple of evolutionary reasons why we have these opposing emotions, which psychologists have termed “dimorphous expressions.” In a paper published earlier last year in the journal Psychological Science, Oriana Aragon at Yale University’s department of psychology has explored the paradox of “cute aggression,” where a person is so overwhelmed by the dawww-worthiness of a subject that they express a desire to eat that squishy little thing right up. Crying when you’re h
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The Problem of How to Be Depressed Online
In it, co-host PJ Vogt interviews Jamie Lauren Keiles, a 23-year-old artist who has struggled with bipolar disorder for a long time, and who has chronicled that struggle via Instagram. As Vogt points out, the “Depressiongrams” she posted when she was at low points weren’t carefully constructed, artful shots — rather, they displayed her condition “in all its brutal monotony.” One photo was just a line of pill bottles, for example. Keiles has been on an upswing lately, and she’s tracked that re
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Does Watching Good TV Make You a Better Person?
In it, the authors claim that watching high-quality television dramas — things like Mad Men or The West Wing — can increase your emotional intelligence. Related: How Watching Reality TV Might Bring Out the Best in Us In the paper, the authors describe two experiments that led them to their pro-TV conclusion. In one, they asked about 100 people to first watch either a television drama (Mad Men or The West Wing) or a nonfiction program (How the Universe Works or Shark Week: Jaws Strikes Back).
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Sexist Packaging Makes Food Taste Better
The literature is full of these sorts of findings, and we can add another, creepy one to the list, courtesy of Science of Us contributing writer Christian Jarrett. Writing at BPS Research Digest, Jarrett runs down the results of a new study in Social Psychology: Luke Zhu and his colleagues made their finding by asking participants (58 men and 82 women) at a local fair to taste-test a blueberry muffin.
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A Sex Researcher Explains the Fate of Friends With Benefits
(Photo: Sony Pictures) What happens to the friendship part of a friends-with-benefits situation once the benefits are no longer in play? Sex researcher Justin Lehmiller recently answered this question on his site, Sex and Psychology, looking to the research to give the reader who posed the question some good news: The friendship isn’t necessarily doomed, he writes. Related: The Way You Understand Your Sex Drive Is Wrong One study, for example, found that about half of the 308 participants said
