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Human nature Psychology - Vyoos

Money is sexy

August 30th 2010 08:28

Money compensates for bad hair too

There is an old joke that defines "charisma" as something that short, fat, balding rich men have. An Israeli academic has just proven it correct.

Dan Ariely, who is a Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University in the US, determined that short men looking for women through online dating sites are disadvantaged and the only thing that can compensate, in the eyes of women, for their shortness of stature is money.

Specifically, men need to earn about US$35,000 more a year for every inch they are under 5ft10in.

Prof Ariely reached the conclusion after polling 28,000 online daters.

His research also revealed that women think men are most desirable aged 27, men think women are most desirable at 21, women go more for looks while men go more for age and weight, and both lie a lot in creating their online profiles.

For women, the attractiveness of men rises the more education they have, but men don't return the compliment, generally giving a woman no extra credit for a degree beyond a bachelor's. Intimidated?

Professor Ariely's rather sad findings are published in his book "The Upside of Irrationality".

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Dating, Human nature, Psychology, Romance

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Getting to the bottom of the graffiti problem

March 8th 2010 06:35

VYOOS EDITORIAL
Sometimes, the best decisions in law are innovative moments of colour splashed on grey areas of inefficacy.

The ideal judicial system is one which protects both the citizens of a community and the rights of those citizens. But the law can be a platform of social justice made of quicksand. It can never cover all eventualities, and if people try to make it do so, the law can be an ass.

An example surfaced in San Juan del Rio in Queretaro state, central Mexico, late last week, when police caught a 13-year-old boy spray-painting graffiti tags on municipal property. They took the boy to a municipal official whose job it was to deal with petty offences.

The official decided that, in this case, a lesson about vandalism and the sanctity of other people's property might be learned if he spray-painted the boy's buttocks.

So he did.

The San Juan del Rio mayor promptly fired the official, saying he should have played it by the book and informed the boy's parents, who would then be responsible for paying for the graffiti to be removed.

In today's carefully sanitised and correct world, the mayor was right. Informing the parents, and forcing them to pay for the damage, was the legally mandated and sensible thing to do. It is interesting, however, that this action would in no obvious way have given the boy a demonstration of why his behaviour was considered unacceptable.

To be fair, the official went too far. You can not pull down the pants of anyone, let alone a 13-year-old, and spray-paint their bum to make a point. But perhaps the point could have been made anecdotally — imagine how you would feel if I violated your property, to wit, your bottom, by taking this spray can and ...

If, next weekend, the 13-year-old boy decides after consideration that he is no longer inclined to spray-paint graffiti on municipal property, do you think we will have the mayor, who still has his job, to thank, or the official who no longer has his job?

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Mexico, Human nature, Law, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Vyoos Editorial

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How cool is this?

December 22nd 2009 20:09

Adam Ferrier has a bright future in his chosen field of consumer psychology, whatever that is.

Ferrier, whom we should call Dr Ferrier because he has just completed a PhD at the University of Western Sydney, chose as his thesis subject something far more cool than the usual. His study was: what makes people cool.

He gets your attention immediately by starting with a few things which do not make you cool: an iMac, a pair of Ray-Bans and a flash car.

Oh, wait, the consumer psychology bit is starting to make sense.

Dr Ferrier, who studied the traits of cool people to determine what makes people cool, decided that it is intangible attributes rather than expensive accessories which create the elusive aura coolness.

He distilled his findings into five factors that determine how cool an individual is: self-belief and confidence; defying convention; understated achievement; caring for others; and connectivity.

"The good news is that anyone can become cool," he said. ``It's a bit of myth that you can't become cool — you can. But you're certainly not going to get cool through consumption."

Now that you know the secret, however, there is bad news — a self-awareness of how cool you are won't make you any cooler.

``The other myth is that if you know you are not cool, that somehow makes you cool,'' Dr Ferrier said. ``Just by knowing that you're not cool doesn't change anything.''

The cool doctor has created a Facebook application which measures coolness at apps.facebook.com/dr_cool

Source: mX; image: davidoff

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Human nature, Psychology

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