more recent research

Catching up with Kevin Lewis' excellent blog:

• When it comes to global warming, we think locally.
• Self-deception bites in the long run.
• Even NFL draft-pickers are irrational.
• When a project's close to completion, we lie about how well it's going.
• When stressed, we flock to the familiar.
• We usually over-predict our emotions in response to potential happy or sad events, but in the 2008 elections Obama supporters under-predicted their happiness.
• Free will? Nope, just randomness.
• Neurological evidence that rather than our preferences dictating our choices, our choices dictate our preferences.
• One reason more is not better: if we don't feel we had enough time to weigh our options we assume we made a poor choice.
• More brain scans showing that we like things more once we've chosen them - partly because we associate our choices with our self-identity.
• It's difficult disliking the majority: prejudice - at least against atheists - is reduced when atheists are perceived to be prevalent.
• Anger makes us masochists.
• Adolescents think their peers partake - or abstain - from drugs just like them.
• We're more racist when our ego's insecure.
• We're more civic minded when in a diverse setting.

When academics become so enthralled with their research that they lose common sense:

• We can reduce homophobia and other prejudices by increasing people's belief in the afterlife.