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| Photo by Lonely Planet. |
Happy Dads
There is a lot of disheartening research on what having children actually does to your happiness in life and your relationship (mostly it seems like it makes you less happy for quite some time, despite --or perhaps because of-- feeling this amazing love for your child). A new piece of research, however, shows that parenthood does make one group happier overall! Guess who? Men. Isn't it funny how all this research shows that marriage and children make men's lives happier and healthier, while doing the opposite for women, and yet women are the ones who are supposed to be desperate for it all?
Rebounding and Religion
The rebound effect is what happens when you try to suppress a thought and it bounces back into your mind, stronger than ever. New research looks into this effect in the context of religious teenagers who are taught that their sexual thoughts are wrong. Turns out that Orthodox Jewish boys who are trying to suppress their sexual thoughts have even more compulsive sexual thoughts than their peers and are less happy because of it. Sigh.
Eye Contact
Have you ever talked to a person who maintains eye contact for the ENTIRE CONVERSATION? It's weird, right? (Unless you are one of those people, then you just think it's normal.) I recently had one of those conversations and I suddenly didn't know what to do with my eyes. Well, it turns out that, in general, people are equally happy with the amount of eye contact you give them if you stare into the ol' peepers 75% of the time or 25% of the time. So we can all cut it down a notch.
Video Game Violence
The evidence regarding the relationship between violent videogames and violence in real life is inconsistent at best. When I was in university, it seemed that the consensus was on the causative side, saying that video games did, indeed, increase IRL aggression. Now, it's less clear, and there is another study out supporting the idea that violent video games do not create more violent teens.
Wit and the Glass Ceiling
Here's more fun with unconscious bias in the workplace: witty men are more likely to be promoted, while witty women are less likely to get the same favour. It's unsurprising to any funny woman that humour is more appreciated in men, but always disheartening to see it confirmed in research.
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