"Everybody dies in the end": Does knowing the ending always spoil the fun?

Adapted from source

If you ever find yourself in the kind of situation where you (semi-) intentionally reveal the ending of a book/movie/TV show to someone who hasn’t read or seen it yet – AND if you happen to feel generally quite protective over your various body parts – there is only one sensible course of action: run. Very fast and, preferably, very far away. Unless you have revealed the ending of the Game of Thrones series, in which case you may seriously consider testing out firsthand how cozy life on other planets could be.

Men have it bigger: gender differences in social networks

 Image source

Have you ever wondered why men and women seem to differ in the way they socialise? According to Baumeister and Sommer, men and women are equally driven by the need to belong to a social group. However, women tend to socialise within a smaller social circle, whereas men tend to socialise within a wider network. This would then lead women to form attachments with close others, and men to have more numerous associates who are less close.

Moving for Money

Would you be willing to run around the block each morning in exchange for a free cappuccino or a free ride on the metro? Rewarding people with money increases motivation to exercise, finds a recently published study in Annals of Internal Medicine. During a 13-week intervention, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania managed to motivate their employees to take no less than 7000 steps a day!

Figure 1. Illustration by Iván López Núñez (for Homo Sociabilis)

Defying the winter blues: get ready to rock the springtime!

The British psychologist Cliff Arnall stated 11 years ago that ‘Blue Monday’ (the 3rd Monday of January) was the most depressing day of the year. The majority of people have broken their new-years resolutions six to seven days into the New Year, and whatever was left of that holiday happiness and family fun have kicked the bucket by then. Luckily, that day has passed, and we’re now well on our way to spring. Days are noticeably getting longer again (sunrise before 8am, yet sun down around 6pm, yay!), and slowly we’re all feeling better, right? Or are you, like many of us secretly do, still feeling that winter blues?  If you are, here are five scientifically proven ways that can help you lift your spirit, and help you get ready to rock the springtime.

                           

When thinking about sex helps statistical analysis

A few months ago, Philippe Bernard, a post-doc in our lab, conducted a study examining whether exposure to sexualized music videos (pretty much a norm in this artistic genre) influences attitudes towards sexual harassment (they do). One of the secondary points of the study concerned another variable: self-objectification, a term that captures people's tendency to consider their own body through the prism of a third person's eyes, to "see themselves as an object". We hypothesized that people who self-objectify may be more lenient towards sexual harassment (which in, a way, involves treating others like objects as well). We administered questionnaires evaluating self-objectification and tolerance towards sexual harassment on numeric scales (as is customary in social psychology) and analyzed the results in our paper, that we submitted to a scientific journal. A few months later, we received a feedback from this journal, including one from a reviewer, who wrote the following (don't worry if it seems a bit arcane):

Réponse aux critiques d'Hendrik Vuye sur un article impliquant des membres de notre équipe

Ci-dessous, une réponse à un article publié dans 'La Libre Belgique' le samedi 16 Janvier 2016. Nous avons soumis ce texte à La Libre le lundi 18 mais n'avons pas encore reçu de réponse.
- Update: Le 29/1, La Libre publie un extrait de notre réponse

Enfin une approche efficace contre le harcèlement à l'école?

Source

En 2013, Marion, collégienne de 13 dans la banlieue parisienne, s'est pendue. Dans une lettre d'adieu, elle explique son acte par les humiliations répétées que lui faisaient subir des camarades de classe. Elle était devenue la souffre-douleur de la classe, affirme une responsable de l'éducation nationale. Ce cas a fait, à l'époque, la une de la presse. Ce type de faits divers n'est hélas pas rare. Une enquête menée dans la partie francophone de la Belgique  sur plus de 6000 élèves de 11 à 14 ans révèle que le harcèlement est un phénomène très largement répandu, touchant un élève sur trois.