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The Unbearable Allure of Cringe
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The Unbearable Allure of Cringe

Why can’t you stop watching TV shows, movies or viral videos that make you cringe? Cringe is the feeling you get when your boss cracks a joke in a meeting and no one laughs. It’s when your kid shoots a soccer ball and it misses the net by … a lot. It’s when you watch...

In ‘Air,’ Michael Jordan’s Silence Speaks Volumes About the Marketing of Black Athletes
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In ‘Air,’ Michael Jordan’s Silence Speaks Volumes About the Marketing of Black Athletes

The film “Air,” which tells the story of Nike’s signing of Michael Jordan, isn’t actually about Michael Jordan at all. It’s about the beauty of design and the seduction of marketing. It’s about power suits, purple Porsches and Rolexes. It’s about white men languishing through midlife crises who salivate over the branding potential of a...

Gossip Influences Who Gets Ahead in Different Cultures
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Gossip Influences Who Gets Ahead in Different Cultures

Gossip influences if people receive advantages whether they work in an office in the U.S. or in India—or even in a remote village in Africa, a Washington State University study found. In a set of experiments, WSU anthropologists found that positive and negative gossip influenced whether participants were willing to give a person a resource,...

LieLab: the Devil Is in the Details
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LieLab: The Devil Is in the Details

Figuring out a lie has never been easier: forget body language or how convincing the message is, just listen to how detailed and rich the story is. This is the core of a new approach to lie detection, say researchers from the University of Amsterdam’s Leugenlab (LieLab) in collaboration with researchers from Maastricht University and...

What Distinguishes Fans from Celebrity Stalkers?
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What Distinguishes Fans from Celebrity Stalkers?

A survey study of U.S. college students provides new insights into factors associated with the tendency to engage in celebrity stalking behaviors. Maria Wong (Idaho State University, U.S.), Lynn McCutcheon (North American Journal of Psychology, U.S.), Joshua Rodefer (Mercer University, U.S.) and Kenneth Carter (Emory University, U.S.) present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on...

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The Pot at the End of the Rainbow

Bisexuals use cannabis more frequently for coping, enhancement Young people classified as bisexual not only use cannabis more frequently but also are more likely to use it to cope with mental health issues and for what researchers call experiential “enhancement.” A recent study, titled “The Pot at the End of the Rainbow,” is one of...

How Edgar Allan Poe Became the Darling of the Maligned and Misunderstood
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How Edgar Allan Poe Became the Darling of the Maligned and Misunderstood

Edgar Allan Poe, who would have turned 214 years old on Jan. 19, 2023, remains one of the world’s most recognizable and popular literary figures. His face – with its sunken eyes, enormous forehead and disheveled black hair – adorns tote bags, coffee mugs, T-shirts and lunch boxes. He appears as a meme, either sporting a popped collar and aviator...

E-Commerce Retailers Can Save Money by Considering Pick Failures at Stores
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E-Commerce Retailers Can Save Money by Considering Pick Failures at Stores

The share of e-commerce retail sales in the United States has grown steadily over the last decade. This trend has been driven by retailers with traditional brick-and-mortar stores adopting online channels to connect to customers. In a new study, researchers explored the world of omnichannel retailing — the merging of in-store and online channels in...

God and Guns Often Go Together in U.S. History – This Course Examines Why
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God and Guns Often Go Together in U.S. History – This Course Examines Why

As a religion professor, I’ve come to know many students from other countries who identify as Christian. I realized they were puzzled at some of the things Americans often bundled into their faith – things these international Christians didn’t consider relevant to their own religious identity. One issue in particular sparked a question from a...