A recent analysis of 20 studies over the last 30 years indicates that between 31% and 57% of women have rape fantasies, and these fantasies are frequent or preferred in 9% to 17% of women. Considering that many people are ashamed to report rape fantasies, these stats are most likely lowball figures.
I recently spotted a paper (pdf) in the July 2008 issue of the influential journal Psychological Science with the following title: "Objects on a Collision Path With the Observer Demand Attention."
Hey, you think I should pay attention to that thing headed for my face? Leave it to scientists to require grant funding to figure out what they were supposed to pick up in gym class by like first grade.
Seriously, those guys would not stand at chance at Mentalball.
(Super-seriously, there are some new findings in the paper. Don't let the cool kids tell you science is not cool.)
In the current issue of Psychology Today, I wrote a little piece about personality and body modification
(titled "The Body Mod Squad" in the paper version.) I already have a
pierced tongue and some scarification, but for the servicey sidebar
(titled "Rebel Without a Commitment") I reviewed some more softcore
ways to stand out. (And actually tried them; yes we are better than Maxim.)
I've written some recent posts about bullshit for Brainstorm.
The first one defines bullshit and describes Hunter S. Thompson's use of it on the campaign trail in 1972. And mentions a bullshit lecture on statistics I saw that was actually titled "Not Always Bullshit: A Simple Explanation of Statistics."
The second one relays what Harry Frankfurt, author of On Bullshit, had to tell me about the use of bullshit by Hillary and others on the campaign trail in 2008.
The third describes a bullshit music review in Maxim magazine, asks whether I committed the same sin in Psychology Today, and ties in material from the book How to Talk about Books You Haven't Read.
Magical thinking--typically considered an archaic mode of cognition that populates the world with animistic forces, hidden dimensions, and evocative incantations--may actually serve us well in the future as we navigate an existence increasingly mediated by digital information.
Read the full post at Brainstorm.
But there are several cases where we've already jumped the gun in attributing powers to our tech toys.
In 1937, a long-lost Vermeer was revealed at auction, heralded by experts as one of the Dutch painter's greatest works. Only it wasn't a Vermeer at all. A man named Han van Meegeren had produced this and many other expensive forgeries. Once he stepped forward, their value dropped like the jaws on his customers. Why?
Read the full post at Brainstorm.
I'll give you a hint. It relates to magical thinking.
My latest feature article has just been published in Psychology Today. It's about everyday magical thinking and how even the most hard-core skeptic thinks magically--believing in karma, luck, curses, tempting fate, etc. And it's loaded with coverage of studies that involved voodoo dolls, royal spoons, dart boards, and Mr. Rogers's sweaters. Check it out.
If you haven't seen them already, you really need to check out these amazing, amazing photos of kids' science fair projects. For so many of them I can't even imagine what the null hypothesis could be. It's like science from a semi-parallel universe.
I can't really make fun of how the kids look, though, because check out this pic of my two best friends (since 6th grade), Ken and Glen:
And see how they turned out:
Reminds me of the tale of another computer hacker's transformation:
Considering how lazy many e-daters are, and how clever many other e-daters are, it should come as no surprise that plagiarism runs rampant in the online dating world. On Friday the Wall Street Journal reported on copycat personal profiles, mentioning that in one survey 9% of respondents admitted to lifting material from someone else, and that lines from some sources appear on dozens of people's profile pages. In some cases people cop to lack of imagination, but I suspect in others people subconsciously appropriate the sentiments behind the words so as to justify their claims of authorship.
