Can you make yourself more persistent just by looking at a bottle of Gatorade? - Barking up the wrong tree

Can you make yourself more persistent just by looking at a bottle of Gatorade? - Barking up the wrong tree: visual exposure to a sports drink, relative to a spring water control condition, led to greater persistence on physical tasks, consistent with the well-known association between sports drinks and endurance.

Marginal Revolution: A rainfall theory of democracy

Marginal Revolution: A rainfall theory of democracy

We argue that settled agriculture requires moderate levels of precipitation, and that settled agriculture eventually gave birth to the fundamental institutions that under-gird today’s stable democracies.

Going on a Diet? Start Paying in Cash - NYTimes.com

Going on a Diet? Start Paying in Cash - NYTimes.com

Paying with credit or debit cards makes people more likely to make impulsive, unhealthy food purchases, according to a new study in The Journal of Consumer Research.

Those with a desk job, please stand up

Those with a desk job, please stand up

But when we sit, researchers say, important biological processes take a nap. An enzyme that vacuums dangerous fat out of the bloodstream only works properly when a body is upright. Standing also seems to ward off deadly heart disease, burn calories, increase how well insulin lowers glucose and produce the good brand of cholesterol. Most of these processes occur - or don't - regardless of whether someone exercises. Human beings need to stand.

Our Love/Hate Relationship with Carrots and Sticks - NYTimes.com

Our Love/Hate Relationship with Carrots and Sticks - NYTimes.com

The better, but perhaps less arresting, message is that “Carrots and Sticks (like chemotherapy) are powerful medicines that sometimes work.” It behooves us to figure out when.

Leaning to the Left Makes People Lean Left - NYTimes.com

Leaning to the Left Makes People Lean Left - NYTimes.com

"In three studies we observed that spatially orienting people towards their left or their right correspondingly influenced their political attitudes. These results lend support to the notion that metaphor influences the way we represent and reason about abstract domains. In particular, due to the abstractness of political discourse, the metaphors we choose when discussing politics can impact our attitudes in the political arena."

It’s all more chance than choice.

It’s all more chance than choice.: "

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Mind - Research Upends Traditional Thinking on Study Habits - NYTimes.com

Mind - Research Upends Traditional Thinking on Study Habits - NYTimes.com: An hour of study tonight, an hour on the weekend, another session a week from now: such so-called spacing improves later recall, without requiring students to put in more overall study effort or pay more attention, dozens of studies have found.

Does It Pay to Be Optimistic? - NYTimes.com

Does It Pay to Be Optimistic? - NYTimes.com "dispositional optimists experience significantly better job search outcomes than pessimists with similar skills"

Dan Ariely � Blog Archive Humans and the slime mould �

Dan Ariely � Blog Archive Humans and the slime mould Even for slime mould relativity matters, suggesting that it is a very basic form of decision making!