Placebo effect is real
Spinal-cord neural activity found when individuals were convinced that their pain would be alleviated by a cream treatment, irrespective of whether the cream was real or a placebo. From Smartplanet.com:
Placebo effect not all in your head
By Dana Blankenhorn | Oct 16, 2009
Suffering leads to belief in god
It seems misery loves supernatural explanations…
Excerpt from “Bering in Mind”’s God’s in Mississippi, where the gettin’ is good:
…. In an article soon to be published in Personality and Social Psychology Review , Harvard psychologists Kurt Gray and Daniel Wegner argue that human suffering and God go hand-in-hand because our evolved cognitive systems are inherently unsatisfied with “sh*t happens” types of explanations (that is to say, reality). The main gist of their argument is that, since we’re such a deeply social species, when bad things happen to us we immediately launch a search for the responsible human party. In being morally vigilant this way–in seeking to identify the culpable party–we can effectively punish blameworthy, antisocial people, thus preserving our group’s functional cohesion and preserving each individual’s genetic interests. That’s all fine and dandy, say Gray and Wegner, when someone punches us in the face, steals from us or sleeps with our girlfriend; but when our misfortune is more “abstract” (think cancer or a tsunami) and there’s no obvious single human agent to blame, we see the hand of God.
Love or sex for creative thinking?
Check out “Solve that baffling problem” for an exploration of how psychological distancing helps creative thinking. Then read the article below how being in love does the same — but thinking of sex does not! From Scientific American, September 29, 2009:
Does Falling in Love Make Us More Creative?
A new study demonstrates that thinking about love–but not about sex–causes us to think more “globally,” making it easier to come up with new ideas
Be a better negotiator
Bottom line: get inside your opponent’s head and skip on the empathy.
From The Economist, May 1st, 2008:
Inside a deal
It pays to get inside your opponents’ heads rather than their hearts
Solve that baffling problem
Got a problem that’s baffling you? You could try inverse thinking — focus on what would not solve the problem. But you’ll have a better chance of solving it if you imagine the problem to be far away, time- or distance-wise. The article below from Scientific American explains why. But if you really aspire to be more creative, you should live abroad for a while — as explained in the article from the Economist, shown after this one.
From Scientific American, July 21, 2009:
An Easy Way to Increase Creativity
Why thinking about distant things can make us more creative
You are what you say
I’d better watch what I say…. 
From Scientific American Mind, August 19, 2009:
What Your Choice of Words Says about Your Personality
A language analysis program reveals personality, mental health and intent by counting and categorizing words
Why do we swear?
It seems swearing reduces pain, so go ahead and let it loose when you hammer your finger instead of the nail. But beware — the more you use them, the less potent those swearwords become!
From Scientific American News - July 12, 2009:
Why the #$%! Do We Swear? For Pain Relief
Dropping the F-bomb or other expletives may not only be an expression of agony, but also a means to alleviate it
Why Smart People Do Stupid Things
…or why people are irrational. A must read. From the University of Toronto magazine:
Bad behaviour promotes bad behaviour
Now it’s proven: signs of vandalism promote more vandalism. From The Economist:
Can the can
From The Economist print edition
The idea that graffiti-spraying and other forms of low-level delinquency promote further bad behaviour has now been tested experimentally
Read more »
About
Although it started out as a means of practising expressing myself, this blog is turning out to be more of a compendium of interesting information I come across. One of these days I’ll have to actually write something as opposed to cut and paste.
