http://bit.ly/iJaSBC
The seemingly endless stream of sex scandals by powerful politicians in the United States raises a question: Does this say something about men, or does it say something about power?
New research suggests that power, not being a guy, is the corrupting factor. Powerful people tend to see themselves as more attractive than they really are [...]

http://bit.ly/jqv8vC
We know that some people tend to define themselves by their possessions, but did you know the level of uncertainty a person feels can influence whether they behave in materialistic ways?
That’s the conclusion of new research by Kimberly Rios Morrison and Camille S. Johnson. The researchers also found that uncertainty does not trigger materialism uniformly [...]

http://bit.ly/hYW7Ia
Corruption is more likely in countries where people have a “collective responsibility” ethic as opposed to an individualistic ethic, according to new research.
Poverty matters too — poor countries are likely to see more corruption than rich countries — but this squares with common sense. I can more easily imagine a cop in a poor country [...]

http://bit.ly/hnw713
Sorry John, Ringo, George and Paul. Apparently, love isn’t all you need. To make a relationship work longterm, self-discipline apparently outscores love.
Love and warm feelings prompt people to make promises of fidelity to one another. The stronger the emotion we feel, the bigger the promises we make. But new research by Johanna Peetz and Lara [...]

http://bit.ly/g4zBIF Tragedy tends to bring out the best in people, according to new research into cooperative behavior. The more people are affected by tragedy, the more they cooperate and engage in “prosocial” behavior.
In a study of 2,447 residents in five provinces at the epicenter of a 2008 earthquake in China, researchers found that residents who [...]

Madeleine Brand had me on her KPCC public radio show today to talk about illusory correlations (as they apply to the Juan Williams controversy) and the action bias (as it applies to the upcoming 2010 midterm elections).
Listen here or download the file here http://bit.ly/9OpK5a

http://bit.ly/dkYwC7
Ever hear of the phenomenon called an “illusory correlation”? It explains why commentator Williams, who was recently fired from NPR, associates Muslims at airports with terrorists.
I am going to be writing my next column for Slate about this issue. To whet your appetite, here’s a radio interview about illusory correlations and other biases with Steve [...]

http://bit.ly/aLUkqZ
Lots of people come home from work feeling upset. But it turns out there are systematic gender differences in the way heterosexual men and women bring work-related unpleasant feelings home.
Men, on average, tend to shield their families from unpleasant things that happened at work, and the more satisifed men are in their relationships, the more [...]

http://bit.ly/dbCCmk
The 2010 Nobel Prize in Economics has been awarded to Peter Diamond, a champion of the field of behavioral economics. As I am sure you know, behavioral economics is a discipline which shows how people regularly depart from the rational, self-interested behavior that conventional economics suggests is the universal norm. The reason people regularly fail [...]

http://bit.ly/9IMj7P
A variety of research studies show that attractiveness helps people in a variety of professional settings. Defendents in the criminal justice system and children in daycare get away with more lenient punishments when they are attractive, compared to when they are not.
But new research shows that there is a downside to being attractive — when [...]