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If your parents divorced, are you more likely to divorce?
obably -- if you're a woman: Research on the intergenerational transmission of divorce has demonstrated that compared with offspring of nondivorced parents, those of divorced parents generally have more negative attitudes toward marriage as an institution and are less optimistic about the feasibility of a long-lasting, healthy marriage. It is also possible that when entering marriage themselves, adults whose parents divorced have less personal relationship commitment to their own marriages and less confidence in their own ability to maintain a…
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Does parenthood make marriage worse?
s -- but you can limit this by being happy in your marriage before parenthood and planning the pregnancy: The purpose of the present study was to discriminate between the 2 dominant perspectives governing research on the nature of marital change over the transition to parenthood. Progress can be made in understanding this transition by recognizing the role of uncontrolled sources of variability in research designs, defining and using control groups, and timing of data collection around the child's arrival,…
1 min read
How to pick a self-help book:
lf-help books for psychological disorders have become increasingly popular, yet there is surprisingly little research on their scientific status or overall utility. The authors identified 50 top-selling self-help books for anxiety, depressive, and trauma-related disorders. Using a scale derived from the literature on bibliotherapy, expert psychologists rated each book on overall usefulness, grounding in psychological science, the extent to which it offers reasonable expectations, the extent to which it offers specific guidance for implementing the self-help techniques and for monitoring…
1 min read
Who makes bomb threats?
stly middle-aged men who want money: This study examined telephone bomb threats and offender characteristics in Japan (N = 101). The results showed that the most frequent offenders were middle-aged men (mean 42.6 years), motivated by desire for money (46%), resentment (26%), or diversion (24%). In the case of female offenders, most were connected with the targets (83%). Categorical principle component analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis differentiated the offenders into three themes. 'Instrumental' offenders telephoned the target directly (e.g. a…
1 min read
Does assassination promote democracy?
s. Seems like whacking people may be a way to promote freedom: Assassinations are a persistent feature of the political landscape. Using a new data set of assassination attempts on all world leaders from 1875 to 2004, we exploit inherent randomness in the success or failure of assassination attempts to identify assassination’s effects. We find that, on average, successful assassinations of autocrats produce sustained moves toward democracy. We also find that assassinations affect the intensity of small-scale conflicts. The results…
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Do spies and assassins really wear fake beards?
solutely. When an assassin pulls off a hit in a public place, he usually wears what espionage experts call "light disguise," consisting of accessories that can be quickly removed—like glasses, a hat, a cane, or the old standby false mustache. That way, after pulling the trigger, he can duck into a restroom stall and change identities by peeling off his facial hair and ditching the chapeau. Beards also help to confuse electronic facial recognition systems that rely on precise measurements…
1 min read
Does being curious improve your memory?
s, it can: Curiosity has been described as a desire for learning and knowledge, but its underlying mechanisms are not well understood. We scanned subjects with functional magnetic resonance imaging while they read trivia questions. The level of curiosity when reading questions was correlated with activity in caudate regions previously suggested to be involved in anticipated reward. This finding led to a behavioral study, which showed that subjects spent more scarce resources (either limited tokens or waiting time) to find…
1 min read
Are nightmares cathartic?:
pe: Do nightmares increase or decrease anxiety? Theoretical views of nightmares suggest that nightmares play out stressful events, decathecting their energy. A more pragmatic view suggests that nightmares that result in waking distress add to the burden of anxiety. The current study investigates whether negative life events are associated with an increase or decrease in anxiety attributable to nightmares in 624 adolescents aged between 12 and 19. The results indicate no support for a tension reduction hypothesis. There seems no…
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