Our propensity to be sweet as pie—or not—may be genetic. In a new survey, researchers asked whether participants agreed with statements like “Human nature is basically good” and evaluated their charitable behaviors while also combing their DNA for the presence of genes associated with social behavior. The study found that we’re less likely than ever [...]
Aug 23, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, CSR, Health and Wellness, Trends | Tags: A/A oxytocin receptor, A/G oxytocin receptor, airline, CEO trends, charity, CSR, CSR trends, customer service, Harvard Business Review, kindness, oxytocin, oxytocin kindness, oxytocin trust, psychology, science, workplace trends | Leave A Comment »
A new look at people aged 95 and older found that those among us who focus on the positive and keep laughing are more likely to live longer. Plus, it turns out that those who more often practice self-deception less often enjoy a genuine laugh. Not surprisingly, it seems that depressed people spend more time [...]
Aug 16, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Health and Wellness, Trends | Tags: antidepressants, blame, depressed, depressed parents, depressed people, depression, depression trends, elderly, happiness, Internet usage trends, laughter, live longer, mental health trends, pregnant antidepressants, psychological trends, psychology, seniors | Leave A Comment »
Lena Dunham’s quirky HBO series “Girls” is inspiring lots of talk about female friendships. (And is it any coincidence that science says a woman should have three good girlfriends for optimum stress relief?) This is true both for humans and animals, among which female friends are believed to anchor the basic unit of social life, [...]
Aug 10, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Health and Wellness, Trends | Tags: animal psychology, animal science, baboons, elephants, female friendship, frenemies, friendship, friendship trends, girlfriends, girls, Girls show, HBO Girls, health trends, humans, lions, primatologist, psychology, romance, science, stress | Leave A Comment »
In her 2010 book I Remember Nothing, Nora Ephron asserted that older is wiser and more enlightened—a message that resonates powerfully today, even though the late Ephron would have argued that older certainly isn’t prettier or without its indignities. (American Apparel’s ad campaign featuring a beautiful, bespectacled “woman of a certain age” seems to defy [...]
Aug 03, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Trends, Youth | Tags: aging, aging attitudes, aging perceptions, aging stereotypes, aging trends, American Apparel, baby boomers, Betty White, creativity, George Clooney, getting older, Jane Fonda, Nora Ephron, optimism, psychology | Leave A Comment »
Not content to merely follow the conventional anti-aging advice about lavishing sunscreen, eating well and exercising, consumers perpetually have their ears—and their wallets—open to the latest, greatest anti-aging product. Women’s expenditures on luxury beauty products actually swell during economic recessions, which psychologists say puts them in overdrive in the search for a mate. And might [...]
Aug 02, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Trends | Tags: aging trends, anti-aging, anti-aging market, anti-aging products, anti-aging trends, baby boomers, beauty products recessions, beauty trends, bee venom mask, Botox, Deborah Mitchell, luxury beauty trends, luxury marketing, nightingale poop, psychology | Leave A Comment »
Calling all gossip girls—and boys! While it’s true that both genders gossip, a recent study found that we gab about very different things—women about physical appearance and social information, and men about achievement-related topics. Most notably, the study revealed that the effects of gossip on female friendships and male friendships are very different; gossip helped [...]
Jul 30, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Marketing, Technology, Trends | Tags: female friendship, friendship, friendship trends, gender differences, gossip, gossip trends, male friendship, psychology, small talk, social media trends, social mores, sociology, texting | Leave A Comment »
Some scientists and philosophers would have us believe that there’s a viable explanation for coincidence, which seems by its very nature to be impossible to explain. Late Austrian biologist Paul Kammerer attributed coincidence to his Law of Seriality, and Carl Jung later built on Kammerer’s law to create his own concept of “synchronicity,” which asserted [...]
Jul 17, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Marketing, Trends | Tags: Carl Jung, coincidence, coincidences, Mark Twain, Paul Kammerer, psychology, science coincidence, science news, science trends, statistician | Leave A Comment »
The greatest indicators of success in life? You already know it’s helpful to have a daddy with the bank account to support an Ivy League education—and essential to have grit and determination. But some new research shows that there are certain other variables that predispose young people to climb to higher rungs. For example, co-workers [...]
Jul 11, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Trends, Youth | Tags: college, demographic, guilt, Ivy League, leadership, leadership traits, leadership trends, liberal arts degree, Mitt Romney, Mormon, Mormonism, psychology, STEM fields, success traits, traits of leaders | Leave A Comment »
It’s relatively easy to spot a liar at work, if you can dial in on atypical behavior such as a fake smile, unusual response time, dilated pupils and changes in gestures. But whereas authenticity is crucial to a person’s mental health when communicating with romantic partners, friends and family, a study out of London revealed [...]
Jun 08, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Trends | Tags: authenticity, body language, communication trends, dishonesty at work, Greg Mortenson, honesty, how to spot a liar, job trends, lying, lying at work, psychology, signs of lying, Three Cups of Tea, transparency | Leave A Comment »
Lots of us remember grade school for the notes we passed under desks and the secrets we whispered on the playground … to best friends. But some English schools are adopting “best friend bans” to save their students from the pain of “breaking up” with a friend later on. This kind of practice is redolent [...]
May 22, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Social Media, Technology, Trends, Youth | Tags: best friends, childhood, children, education, education trends, elementary school, friendship, friendship trends, helicopter parents, parenting, parenting trends, psychology, psychology trends, smartphones, Social Media, text messaging | Leave A Comment »
It’s no secret that a pretty face can give job seekers a leg up during the hiring process, but new studies suggest that attractive men have the greatest advantage of all. Possibly that’s because HR departments are staffed predominantly by women, who want to filter out potential competition, but even when it’s men making the [...]
May 21, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Trends, Youth | Tags: Angelina Jolie, Asia, attractiveness, beauty, beauty trends, China, employment trends, Europe, hiring trends, human resources trends, Israel, job trends, psychology, standard of beauty, Toronto | Leave A Comment »
If we’re living in the age of paranoia, women are being especially affected—the result, perhaps, of stress, PMS and lack of sleep. Sadly, children are being affected, too. But things aren’t terribly rosy on the other end of the age spectrum, either: Among older adults, depression and anxiety are the primary reasons that from 2002 [...]
May 14, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Health and Wellness, Trends, Youth | Tags: addiction, agoraphobia, antidepressants, anxiety, Canada, children anxiety, consumerism, depression, elderly depression, happiness, hoarding, IQ scores, marketing trends, medicine trends, mood, panic attacks, paranoia, psychology, psychology trends, research, social phobia | Leave A Comment »
In the U.S., the number of folks living alone is almost eight times greater now than in 1950. Today, when people tend to couple up and marry later and find divorce more acceptable and accessible if things don’t work out, 51 percent of Americans are single. That translates to roughly one in four living alone, [...]
May 09, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Brands, Marketing, Trends | Tags: autonomy, baby boom, demographic shift, demographic trends, depression, Eric Klinenberg, Finland, going solo, Japan, living alone, psychology, single motherhood, singleton, United States | Leave A Comment »
It’s been the inspiration for popular classic songs from Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” and Elvis Presley’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” to the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby.” It’s an inescapable element of the human condition, as old as time. And as solo living becomes more popular, we debate the relationship to a growing [...]
Apr 25, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Health and Wellness, Marketing, Social Media, Trends | Tags: elderly, elderly lonely, Elvis Presley, George Clooney, Hank Williams, Jeff, kodokushi, loneliness, lonely, lonely deaths, lonesome, Marketing, meme, One Lonely Guy, psychology, seniors, seniors lonely, Social Media, songs about loneliness, The Beatles, Tokyo, viral | Leave A Comment »
Stress has been named one of the leading health epidemics of this century, related to 70 percent of all visits to primary care physicians. Some psychologists liken stress to an emotional contagion, with each of us capable of spreading it to others. As most of us pay more attention to what leaders say and do, [...]
Apr 20, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Health and Wellness, Trends | Tags: bosses, employment trends, Finland, Hong Kong, malemployment, management trends, negativity, positivity, psychology, stress, stress in the workplace, workplace trends | Leave A Comment »
There is no mathematical equation in the world that can determine whether two people will feel chemistry or rapport that culminates in true love—so says a new study that shoots holes through dating sites’ claims of scientific and surefire matchmaking. Documented by a social psychology professor at Northwestern, the study evaluated online dating on its [...]
Apr 18, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Marketing, Social Media, Trends | Tags: dating trends, love and relationship trends, Northwestern University, online dating, online dating trends, psychology, social psychology | Leave A Comment »
A Chicago emergency room doctor recently treated a woman who believed she had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The Internet told her so. What she actually had: the common cold. With eight in 10 Americans now logging on to suss out health information, this variety of self-diagnosis has garnered the nickname “cyberchondria”—fitting, as 90 percent of us acknowledge [...]
Mar 14, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Health and Wellness, Trends | Tags: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, cyberchondria, fibryomyalgia, Generation X, Google medical diagnosis, health trends, healthcare, lactose intolerance, lupus, manic depressive, medical trends, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, psychology, self-diagnosis | Leave A Comment »
It’s intangible and difficult to quantify, but happiness nonetheless has become a burgeoning field of scientific study. The thing about happiness, like sex, is that everyone wants it, especially after the Great Recession emptied our pockets and sent us pursuing pleasures that money can’t buy. This dogged pursuit of happiness has become a movement. See [...]
Mar 09, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Health and Wellness, Trends | Tags: Andrew Weil, cultural trends, Designing Happiness class, happiest people, happiness, happiness trends, Happy documentary, Happy movie, happy people, psychology, sex, sleep, Spontaneous Happiness, Stanford business school, The Happiness Project, well-being, wellness, world happiness poll | Leave A Comment »
In case you needed more parenting-related pressure laid on your shoulders, a recent study reveals that a child’s hippocampus—the region of the brain that helps manage stress and strengthen memory and learning—can be up to 10 percent larger if his mother is patient and encouraging. The modern understanding of child development is in stark contrast [...]
Mar 07, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Social Media, Trends, Youth | Tags: America, Beijing, child development, children, Facebook, France, hippocampus, parenting, parenting trends, psychology, research, Social Media, tiger mom | Leave A Comment »
Believe it or not, there’s such a thing as healthy narcissism. Characterized by high self-esteem and a major desire for authority, it’s tolerable, sometimes even helpful. And then there’s unhealthy narcissism, the variety that gives a person an inhuman sense of entitlement and the willingness to exploit others. A new study has determined that unhealthy [...]
Feb 28, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Trends | Tags: anxiety, CEOs, cortisol, employees, health trends, Madonna, narcissism, narcissistic CEOs, Newt Gingrich, psychology, research, science, stress, yoga | Leave A Comment »
Want the wrecking ball to swing right on past your marriage even as it seems to be obliterating so many others? If for no other reason, you may want to stay married for better health. Divorce is linked with declining health, especially among those aged 35 to 41. (Older divorcees appear to be less damaged.) [...]
Feb 27, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Trends | Tags: divorce, doctor, gratitude, love, marriage trends, nagging, psychiatrist, psychology, relationships, sex | Leave A Comment »
While we saw some big celebrity breakups coming from a mile away (see: Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher), Heidi Klum and Seal’s separation after seven years of marriage took our breath away (sad, but true). This from the pair who famously renewed their vows each year, never shied away from [...]
Feb 24, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Trends | Tags: Ashton Kutcher, celebrity news, Demi Moore, Heidi Klum, Hollywood, How Not to Marry the Wrong Guy, India, Jennifer Lopez, love, Marc Anthony, marriage, marriage trends, PDA, psychology, relationships, Seal, sex | Leave A Comment »
Coughing up the password to an email address or social media site is the newest test of young love. With this top-secret data in hand, modern high school sweethearts scour one another’s exchanges for clues about faithfulness—often storing ammunition for post-breakup warfare while they’re at it. Adults, too, grapple with the issue of disclosing passwords [...]
Feb 03, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Social Media, Technology, Trends | Tags: AIM, cellphones, children, digital literacy, Facebook, Google, love, Netflix, password, password sharing, privacy, psychology, relationships, smartphones, Social Media, teenagers, two-factor authentication | Leave A Comment »
Might millennials be the most perplexing—and intriguing—demographic group ever? Made up of 18- to 34-year-olds, they’re bound by few commonalities; one being a fondness for social media and another, an overarching fear of commitment. This commitment issue is big news these days, as scorned bosses, lovers and advertisers everywhere ponder what went wrong. Some of [...]
Jan 30, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Social Media, Trends, Youth | Tags: Australia, automobiles, baby boomers, children, divorce, Gen Y, Generation X, Generation Y, generational trends, hiring, homeownership, HR, job trends, marriage, millennial, parenthood, professional trends, psychology, sociology, young adults | Leave A Comment »
