Which personality traits are associated with physical attractiveness? Recent findings suggest that people high in some dark personality traits, such as narcissism and psychopathy, can be physically attractive. But what makes them attractive?

Studies have confounded the more enduring qualities that impact attractiveness (i.e., unadorned attractiveness) and the effects of easily manipulated qualities such as clothing (i.e., effective adornment). In this multimethod study, we disentangle these components of attractiveness, collect self-reports and peer reports of eight major personality traits, and reveal the personality profile of people who adorn themselves effectively. Consistent with findings that dark personalities actively create positive first impressions, we found that the composite of the Dark Triad—Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy—correlates with effective adornment. This effect was also evident for psychopathy measured alone.

This study provides the first experimental evidence that dark personalities construct appearances that act as social lures—possibly facilitating their cunning social strategies.

{ Social Psychological and Personality Science /SAGE }

charcoal and pastel on paper { Johannes Kahrs, Untitled (figure with star), 2007 }

Our brains are so adept at detecting faces that we often see them in random patterns, such as clouds or the gnarled bark of a tree. Occasionally one of these illusory faces comes along that resembles a celebrity and the story ends up in the news - like when Michael Jackson’s face appeared on the surface of a piece of toast. A new study asks whether some people are more prone than others to perceiving these illusory faces. […]

The key finding is that people who scored high in paranormal belief or religiosity were more likely to see face-like areas in the pictures compared with the sceptics and atheists.

{ BPS | Continue reading }

photo { Tono Stano }

The sex act called fisting is a source of confusion and misconceptions for many Christians. This is unfortunate, because it means that many Christian men and women are depriving themselves of what could be the most spiritual sexual experience of their lives. Like anal sex and BDSM, fisting is often mistakenly associated with the gay community or is considered a sex act too extreme to be appropriate for Christian couples. Not only are these views incorrect, but fisting actually has a scriptural precedent, as we will show.

{ Sex in Christ | Continue reading }

photo { Paul McDonough }

related { Shark swimming in flooded street in NJ. True? }

update { Trump has taken decisive action in the wake of last night’s disaster }

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{ Daniel Shea }

Lean allegedly came from the Japanese manufacturing model in the 1980s and 90s, yet its governing principles, the ‘Five Ss’, are explained in Frederick Taylor’s 1911 book The Principles of Scientific Management in beautiful detail: Sort – you look at a workspace and you see what is needed for the job; everything else, pictures, food, drinks, anything apparently superfluous, you take out. Then you Set in order, so for example if somebody is right-handed you’d make sure you they were sitting in a right-handed workspace. Then Shine – you take everything off and clean ­– or shine – the workspace, so that managers can see that you’re doing your job and nothing else. Then you Standardize, so that if you’re in Leicester or Lima it’s the same recognizable corporate space. Then Sustain, always said to be the hardest one – keep it going. Of course Sustain is difficult if you go into a workspace and mess around with it in this way, you generate the Hawthorne effect – a quick peak of interest and then a trough of disappointment, so Sustain is hard. But the psychologically interesting thing is that people still think, ‘It must work.’

We don’t understand psychologically why putting someone in an impoverished space should work, when it doesn’t work for any other animal on the planet. Put an ant in a lean jam jar or a gorilla in a lean cage and they’re really miserable, so why should it work for people? So we started to experiment. […]

Every time we’ve experimented, we’ve found well-being and productivity have been inextricably linked. Over eight years, lean has always, without exception, been the worst condition you can put anyone into.

{ Craig Knight/The Psychologist | Continue reading }

Singapore plans to restrict advertising for “unhealthy” food and drink aimed at children, as countries across Asia grow increasingly concerned about obesity rates. […]

About 11 per cent of adults in the island nation of 5.3m are considered obese, compared with an OECD average of 17 per cent and a US figure of more than 35 per cent. […]

About 60 per cent of Singaporeans eat out four times a week or more, mostly in “hawker stalls” and food courts scattered across the city state that sell cheap dishes based on rice and noodles that are often heavy on cooking oil. Fast food outlets such as McDonald’s and KFC are also popular. […]

The government has been working with food stall owners to cut the amount of oil and salt used in cooking and persuade them to use brown rice, considered healthier than polished white rice.

It has also introduced a system of early morning “mall walks” designed to encourage shoppers in Singapore’s numerous malls to exercise before stores open.

{ FT | Continue reading }

{ A deeply religious pizza parlor worker is suing the archdiocese that presides over the Church of St. Patrick in Newburgh, because he says this 600-pound crucifix fell on him, crushing one of his legs, which had to be amputated. The man believed his devotion to a crucifix was responsible for his wife being cured of cancer. | CBS | full story | Thanks Glenn }

Ovulation, Female Competition, and Product Choice: Hormonal Influences on Consumer Behavior

Recent research shows that women experience nonconscious shifts across different phases of the monthly ovulatory cycle. For example, women at peak fertility (near ovulation) are attracted to different kinds of men and show increased desire to attend social gatherings. Building on the evolutionary logic behind such effects, we examined how, why, and when hormonal fluctuations associated with ovulation influenced women’s product choices. In three experiments, we show that at peak fertility women nonconsciously choose products that enhance appearance (e.g., choosing sexy rather than more conservative clothing). This hormonally regulated effect appears to be driven by a desire to outdo attractive rival women. Consequently, minimizing the salience of attractive women who are potential rivals sup- presses the ovulatory effect on product choice. This research provides some of the first evidence of how, why, and when consumer behavior is influenced by hormonal factors.

Ovulation Leads Women to Perceive Sexy Cads as Good Dads

Why do some women pursue relationships with men who are attractive, dominant, and charming but who do not want to be in relationships—the prototypical sexy cad? Previous research shows that women have an increased desire for such men when they are ovulating, but it is unclear why ovulating women would think it is wise to pursue men who may be unfaithful and could desert them. […] Ovulating women perceive that sexy cads would be good fathers to their own children but not to the children of other women.

{ Improbable Research | Links to PDFs }

A new computer algorithm can analyze the footwear marks left at a crime scene according to clusters of footwear types, makes and tread patterns even if the imprint recorded by crime scene investigators is distorted or only a partial print.

Footwear marks are found at crime scenes much more commonly than fingerprints. […] They point out that while footprints are common they are often left unused by forensic scientists because marks may be distorted, only a partial print may be left and because of the vast number of shoe shapes and sizes. However, matching a footprint at a crime scene can quickly narrow the number of suspects and can tie different crime scenes to the same perpetrator even if other evidence is lacking.

{ EurekAlert | Continue reading }

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{ To truly understand the technique you have to have firsthand experience, so CBS 5 brought along one of its interns, Allie, to take on the new service. }

Every several years, IQ tests test have to be “re-normed” so that the average remains 100. This means that a person who scored 100 a century ago would score 70 today; a person who tested as average a century ago would today be declared mentally retarded. […]

Do rising IQ scores really mean we are getting smarter? […]

Implicit in Flynn’s argument that we are becoming “more modern” is that IQ gains are due to environmental factors, not genetic ones. […] He invokes environmental factors, for example, to explain the shrinking male/female IQ gap and debunk notions of innate differences in intelligence between men and women. He uses similar reasoning to explain IQ differences between developed and developing countries.

{ TNR | Continue reading }

photo { Johan Willner }

What’s the best way to make a good first impression? […] Be yourself.

{ peer-reviewed by my neurons | Continue reading }

Russian Website Selling Hacked Servers.

Security holes enable attackers to switch off pacemakers, rewrite firmware from 30 feet away.

Hacker cracks 4 million hotel locks with ‘James Bond Dry Erase Marker.’

Experts warn about security flaws in airline boarding passes.

Disney Research has unveiled its new method of creating eerily perfect copies of human faces for use on robots.

A Brazilian student has sold her virginity in an online auction for US$780,000 as part of a documentary organised by an Australian filmmaker, although a man who did the same only fetched US$3,000.

Brazil car washer turns up alive at own wake after his family mistakenly identified a murdered local man at the morgue as him.

In September 2012, the FBI learned that Valle was sending e-mail and instant messages discussing plans with multiple co-conspirators to kidnap, rape, torture, kill, cook, and cannibalize a number of women. A court-authorized search of the computer revealed that Valle had created files pertaining to at least 100 women and containing at least one photograph of each woman. Related: His OKCupid profile.

More Biting Attacks in the News.

Can you turn a rat gay?

Why don’t apes have bigger brains? They can’t eat enough to afford them.

Men, not women, are better multitaskers.

Same neurons at work in sleep and under anesthesia.

Why are some consumers willing to pay more for less information?

Could Bricks Made of Animal Blood Be the Future of Construction?

Moderate Drinking Decreases Number of New Brain Cells.

How can I mitigate the effect of heavy drinking on my liver? You can’t. Here’s why.

Edgar Allan Poe: A Psychological Profile.

Interviews with interrogators.

The Telephone Directory as a Species of List Media.

In the last three months, Apple sold 27 million iPhones, 14 million iPads, a record number of laptops, and 70% of America’s MP3 players. It still missed earnings expectations badly.

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office invalidates Apple’s “rubber-banding” patent asserted against Samsung.

Facebook Patents Pokes-Per-Minute Limits.

Air Force plans for a flying saucer.

For reasons scientists have not quite figured out, the immune system can go on the fritz in space: wounds heal more slowly; infection-fighting T-cells send signals less efficiently…When Astronauts Get Sick.

A small collection of items about dropped and bounced cats.

Cat-bounce.com

How to eat a Triceratops.

Why does the bowl of a spoon turn my reflection upside down?

Mexico 68.

The World’s Shortest Freefall.

Guiltless Excuses is a mobile application that pragmatically deals with people’s inner guilt and helps them to maintain a balance between the personal and the public self. [thanks Rob]

This is not a photograph.

This is not a cube.

First impressions are powerful and are formed in all sorts of social settings, from job interviews and first dates to court rooms and classrooms. We regularly make snap judgments about others, deciding whether people are trustworthy, confident, extraverted, likable, and more. Although we have all heard the old adage, “don’t judge a book by its cover,” we do just that. And at the same time that we are judging others, we in turn communicate a great deal of information about ourselves – often unwittingly – that others use to size us up.

{ Scientific American | Continue reading }

art { Christen Brun, A Basket Of Ribbons, 1896 }

…scientific research with actual forensic examiners which [showed] that the *same* expert, examining the *same* evidence, can reach different conclusions when they are affected by bias. The problem was also demonstrated in fingerprinting and DNA, very robust forensic domains. […]

Fingerprinting, DNA, CCTV images, firearms, shoe and tire marks, document examination, and so on. When there is no instrument that says ‘match’ or ‘no-match’ and it is in the ‘eye of the beholder’ to make the judgement, then subjectivity comes in, and is open to cognitive bias. Essentially, forensic areas in which there are no objective criteria: where it is the forensic expert who compares visual patterns and determines if they are ‘sufficiently similar’ or ‘sufficiently consistent’. For example, whether two fingerprints were made by the same finger, whether two bullets were fired from the same gun, whether two signatures were made by the same person. Such determinations are governed by a variety of cognitive processes.

{ Itiel Dror/Mind Hacks | Continue reading }

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Paul Ehrlich gave a talk at Stanford titled “Can a Collapse be Avoided”? Ehrlich is a biologist but his interests spread to Economics and Technology as well. The “collapse” of his talk is the catastrophe that, according to most climate scientists, is rapidly approaching. He listed eight major environmental problems and briefly discussed each. Some of them need no introduction (extinction of species, climate change, pollution) but others are no less catastrophic even though less advertised.

For example, global toxification: we filled the planet with toxis substances, and therefore the odds that some of them interact/combine in some deadly chemical experiment never tried before are increasing exponentially every year. There is no known way to fix something like that. We know how to fix pollution and carbon emissions and so forth (if we wanted to), but science would not know how to deal with a chemical reaction triggered by the combination of toxic substances in the soil. The highlight of the talk for me was the emphasis on “non-linearity”. Many scientists point out the various ways in which humans are hurting our ecosystem, but few single out the fact that some of these ways may combine and become something that is more lethal than the sum of its parts.

Another interesting point that is not widely recognized is that the next addition of one billion people to the population of the planet will have a much bigger impact on the planet than the previous one billion. The reason is that human civilizations already used up all the cheap, rich and ubiquitous resources. Naturally enough, humans started with the cheap, rich and ubiquitous ones, whether forests or oil wells. A huge amount of resources is still left, but those will be much more difficult to harness. For example, oil wells have to be much deeper than they used to. Therefore one liter of gasoline today does not equal one liter of gasoline a century from now: a century from now they will have to do a lot more work to get that liter of gasoline. That was the second key point that struck me: it is not only that some resources are being depleted, but even the resources that will be left are, by definition, those that are difficult to extract and use (a classic case of diminishing margin of return).

The bottom line of these arguments is that the collapse is not only coming, but the combination of the eight factors plus the internal combinations in each of them make it likely that it is coming even sooner than pessimists predict.

{ Piero Scaruffi | Continue reading }

We also inherit — through genes yet to be identified, of course — a trait known as developmental stability. This is essentially the accuracy with which the genetic blueprint is built. Developmental stability keeps the project on track. It reveals itself most obviously in physical symmetry. The two sides of our bodies and brains are constructed separately but from the same 23,000-gene blueprint. If you have high developmental stability, you’ll turn out highly symmetrical. Your feet will be the same shoe size, and the two sides of your face will be identical.

If you’re less developmentally stable, you’ll have feet up to a half-size different and a face that’s like two faces fused together.

{ NY Times | Continue reading }

photo { Jo Longhurst }