COM Reading Bank: Science & Ethics

Excerpt / Summary:
This research examines the role of alcohol consumption on self‐perceived attractiveness. Study 1, carried out in a barroom, showed that the more alcoholic drinks customers consumed, the more attractive they thought they were. In Study 2, participants in a bogus taste‐test study were given either an alcoholic beverage or a non‐alcoholic beverage, with half of each group believing they had consumed alcohol and half believing they had not (balanced placebo design). After consuming beverages, they delivered a speech and rated how attractive, bright, original, and funny they thought they were. [Abstract]

Keywords: Psychology, Attraction
Format: Journal Article
Source: British Journal of Psychology

Excerpt / Summary:
Many dishonest acts are speculatively traced back to a sequence of smaller transgressions that gradually escalated. From financial fraud to plagiarism, online scams and scientific misconduct, deceivers retrospectively describe how minor dishonest decisions snowballed into significant ones over time [1, 2, 3, 4]. Despite the dramatic impact of these acts on economics [5, 6], policy [7] and education [8], we do not have a clear understanding of how and why small transgressions may gradually lead to larger ones. Here, we set out to empirically demonstrate dishonesty escalation in a controlled laboratory setting and examine the underlying mechanism.

Keywords: Psychology, Ethics
Format: Journal Article
Source: Nature Neuroscience

Keywords: Identity; Society and Culture; Science and Ethics
Format: Article
Source: Psychology Today

Excerpt / Summary:
Research has shown that with some nonhuman primates, red is associated with greater sexual attractiveness of females, and recent studies found that a woman with red clothes increases attraction behavior in men. However, the mechanism that explains such behavior was not studied. In this experiment, we hypothesized that men overestimated women's sexual intent when wearing red clothing. Participants evaluated attractiveness and the sexual intent of a woman presented in a photograph wearing a red, a blue, a green or a white tee-shirt. It was found that men evaluated higher sexual intent in the red clothing condition. It was also found that perception of the woman's sexual intent was not moderated by attractiveness rating.

Keywords: Psychology, Attraction
Format: Journal Article
Source: The Journal of Social Psychology

Excerpt / Summary:
It has never been easier in human history to find and share information about health and medicine. But much of the information found on the Internet and shared on social media is inaccurate and potentially dangerous. As more people seek health content online, it will become increasingly important for medical researchers and practitioners to find effective ways of steering the public toward evidence-based content and away from myths and pseudoscience.

Keywords: Science, Social Media
Format: Journal Article
Source: Canadian Medical Association Journal

Excerpt / Summary:
Fisher studies the brains of people who were suffering the trauma of a recent rejection in love using functional MRI. Findings of the study are discussed.

Keywords: Psychology, Relationships
Format: Journal Article
Source: New Scientist

Excerpt / Summary:
Driven by technological progress, human life expectancy has increased greatly since the nineteenth century. Demographic evidence has revealed an ongoing reduction in old-age mortality and a rise of the maximum age at death, which may gradually extend human longevity [1, 2]. Together with observations that lifespan in various animal species is flexible and can be increased by genetic or pharmaceutical intervention, these results have led to suggestions that longevity may not be subject to strict, species-specific genetic constraints. Here, by analysing global demographic data, we show that improvements in survival with age tend to decline after age 100, and that the age at death of the worlds oldest person has not increased since the 1990s. Our results strongly suggest that the maximum lifespan of humans is fixed and subject to natural constraints.

Keywords: Science, Longevity
Format: Journal Article
Source: Nature

Keywords: Media & Technology, Science & Ethics
Format: Article
Source: The Globe and Mail

Excerpt / Summary:
Hill and Barton (2005) showed that fighters in tae kwon do, boxing, and wrestling who wore red jerseys during the 2004 Olympic Games won more often than those wearing blue jerseys. Regarding these results, this study investigated the effects of jersey color during a combat situation on fighters' physical parameters of strength and heart rate. An artificial, experimental combat situation was created in which the color of sport attire was assigned randomly. Fourteen pairs of male athletes matched for weight, height, and age had to fight each other: once in a red jersey and once in a blue. Heart rate (before, during, and after the fight) and strength (before the fight) were tested wearing the blue and the red jerseys. Participants wearing red jerseys had significantly higher heart rates and significantly higher pre-contest values on the strength test. Results showed that participants' body functions are influenced by wearing red equipment.

Keywords: Sports, Psychology
Format: Journal Article
Source: Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology

Excerpt / Summary:
In this article, the author discusses what he feels are the requirements of the personality quality known as integrity. According to the author, integrity is like the weather, in that everyone talks about it, yet no one knows what to do with it. The author states that honesty is not synonymous with integrity, but it is a component of it. He discusses what he refers to as the three steps of integrity. The author also discusses why he feels that error and competing responsibilities are important to integrity.

Keywords: Psychology, Ethics
Format: Article
Source: Atlantic

Excerpt / Summary:
This study investigated the effect fitness level, self-efficacy and locus of control have on the academic achievement of eighth grade students studying in a Mid-Atlantic region middle school (2011-2012 school year). It was hypothesized that the students who had high fitness scores, high level of self-efficacy and high internal locus of control would also have high academic achievement scores in math and reading.

Keywords: Psychology, Education
Format: Journal Article
Source: European Scientific Journal

Excerpt / Summary:
Whether or not human lifespan is subject to an intrinsic limit has long been discussed. Current understanding of the biology of ageing points firmly away from any idea that the end of life is itself genetically programmed [2]. Ageing results from progressive accumulation of multiple forms of damage, many of which arise as inevitable by-products of the molecular and cellular processes that underpin living systems. As time goes by, the burden of damage grows and the risk of dying increases. In this sense, the extremes of human longevity resemble the records for physical performance in other spheres, such as sport.

Keywords: Science, Longevity
Format: Article
Source: The New York Times

Excerpt / Summary: Misinformation spreads rapidly on social media platforms. This column uses a model of online content-sharing to show that a social media platform that wishes to maximize content engagement will propagate extreme articles amongst its most extremist users.
Keywords: Society and Culture; Science and Ethics; Health and Wellness
Format: Article
Source: Vox EU

Excerpt / Summary:
"The pain and anguish of rejection by a romantic partner may be the result of activity in parts of the brain associated with motivation, reward and addiction cravings, according to a study published in the July issue of the Journal of Neurophysiology (http://jn.physiology.org/).

The study's findings could have implications for understanding why feelings related to romantic rejection can be hard to control, and may provide insight into extreme behaviors associated with rejection, such as stalking, homicide and suicide-behaviors that occur across many cultures throughout the world."

Keywords: Psychology, Relationships
Format: Article
Source: Pain & Central Nervous System Week

Excerpt / Summary:
In "Sex, Lies, and Conversation; Why is It So Hard for Men and Women to Talk to Each Other," linguist Deborah Tannen argues that the problems of men and women in marriage often stem from the fact that they misunderstand what the other person is really trying to say. Tannen notes that her own research concluded that women's most frequent complaint in marriage was that their husbands did not listen to them, but that when she examined actual conversations, she found that the problem was not that men don't listen, but that they listen differently. [Owlcation]

Keywords: Psychology, Relationships
Format: Article
Source: The Washington Post

Excerpt / Summary:
In this issue, Gurwin et al1 (see page 8) attempt to verify what we might (whimsically) call the “Temin effect.” A group of medical students at the University of Pennsylvania were given six 90-minute training sessions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. There they were taught, as art history students have been taught for centuries, how to look at art: how to observe and describe and discuss works of imagination. The question was, would lessons in a field far from their own make them better at the observational and diagnostic skills that lie at the core of ophthalmology? And the answer is that it did, substantially. Taking would-be physicians out of the hospital and into a museum—taking them out of their own world and into a different one—made them better physicians.

Keywords: Psychology, Perception
Format: Journal Article
Source: Opthalmology

Keywords: Science & Ethics, Communication, Media & Technology
Format: Article
Source: Rolling Stone