Why a man’s face can lie but still produce orgasms

Interesting research reported: the wider a man’s face, the more aggressive and the more likely to lie and cheat.  Doesn’t apply to women.  But a good-looking man will produce more orgasms in women.  From The Economist, July 9th, 2011:

Physiognomy: Facing the truth

Why a man’s face can lie but still produce orgasms

Middle class attitudes changing

How middle class attitudes differ from those of the working class, in different countries.  Enlightening.  From The Economist, Feb 12th 2009:

A special report on the new middle classes in emerging markets: Beyond Wisteria Lane

Scott Fitzgerald was wrong. It is not the rich who are different but the middle classes

Rich lack empathy

According to the study below, people from higher economic status have lower emotional intelligence. IMHO that’s like saying the rich lack empathy.

From Chief Learning Officer:

Emotional Intelligence Linked to Socio-Economics, New Study Shows

The rich are selfish

At least more selfish than the poor. But not all is lost: if the rich are reminded, they can act with more compassion.

From The Economist, July 31, 2010:

The rich are different from you and me

They are more selfish

Fair Play

Is the human quality of fairness in our genome, or is it a social construct?  The study concludes the latter — it found  a correlation between fairness and market integration.  Note that the original article includes a graph not reproduced here.  From the Mar 18th, 2010 issue of The Economist:

The origins of selflessness

Fair play

It is not so much that cheats don’t prosper, but that prosperity does not cheat

Pinker on Gladwell

An eye-opening review of Malcolm Gladwell’s book “What the dog saw” by Steven Pinker –  I will be much more careful of accepting Gladwell’s conclusions from here on.  From the New York Times:

Malcolm Gladwell, Eclectic Detective

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.

Jared Diamond on the environment

An essay by Jared Diamond, from Time magazine, August 26, 2oo2:

Lessons from Lost Worlds

By Jared Diamond

Beware of videoconferencing

Sounds like videoconferencing is not a good way to make a sale or establish trusted relationships. It may have a great deal to do with eye-contact and head-bobbing.   (After you read the article, you can check out cocodex.com.)

From 07.30.2006 Discover magazine:

Jaron’s World: Heads-Up

Why your next telephone may come mounted on a neck.

Bad behaviour promotes bad behaviour

Now it’s proven: signs of vandalism promote more vandalism.  From The Economist:

Can the can

Nov 20th 2008
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