Links of the Week XVIII (Football Edition)

Special edition of my links this week, to celebrate the start of the European football (aka soccer) and the American football season.

German:
Kaiser Franz erklärt den ersten Spieltag ;-)
Die Pferde, die immer mit Jermaine Jones durchgehen...

English: 
The Manning brothers can do more than just throw the football ;-)
An American Coach in England...trying to understand European Football

Links of the Week XVII

A couple of interesting/funny/insightful/absurd/etc. links for you to start the new week...

German:
Islam ist ein Land und Juden folgen Jesus Christus... noch Fragen?
Sie wollen zahlen? Einmal in die Kamera lächeln, bitte :-)

English:
Ok, South Koreans are geniuses...helping you to park your car
Ok, what's next? Someone in Latin America naming their child Jesus? Oh wait...

Links of the Week XVI

They're back.... and better than ever ;-) Hope you enjoy!

German:
Eine außergewöhnliche Hommage an den sterbenden Nelson Mandela
Ein ungewöhnlicher Versuch die Freundschaft zwischen zwei Ländern zu fördern

English:
The Louvre's statues get a modern makeover
Please don't try this at home!

A Woman's Worth

You may have noticed that my blog is sort of on summer break right now, but the other day I read an article that I just couldn't resist writing about. As a man, I have no problem whatsoever appreciating a woman's worth -- I won't go into any details, but life would simply be very boring without them. ;-)  But one aspect that I had never considered (until now) is a woman's influence on a man's generosity.

According to Adam Grant, men are more generous when women are around. In his article "Why Men need Women" for the New York Times, Grant writes: "The mere presence of female family members -- even infants -- can be enough to nudge men in the generous direction." And cites an interesting study to back up his claim. A couple of researchers found that when chief executives become fathers they often lower their employee's wages, explaining they need more money to take care of their growing family. But there was a twist. This only happened when the newborn child was a boy. Grant's conclusion?

Daughters apparently soften fathers and evoke more caretaking tendencies. The speculation is that as we brush our daughters' hair and take them to dance classes, we become gentler, more empathetic and more other-oriented.

And it's not just daughters. A sister, a wife, a mother... they all can have a "generous" impact on men. Bill Gates says that his wife and his mother always pressed him to do more for others. Today the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation plays a big role in enhancing healthcare and reducing poverty worldwide. It's not just generosity though:

...Professor Van Lange's team pointed to another study showing that the more sisters a father has, the more time he spends raising his own children. After growing up with sisters, men who have opportunities to give are more likely to do so.

It's really starting to look like we desperately need women in our lives if we want to be better men. Ok, let me just think about that for a minute... I don't have any sisters, I don't have a wife. So guess who's to blame if I'm not a generous enough person? ;-) Love you, mom!

Prepaying for Happiness?

A while ago I posted a video by my favorite behavioral economist Dan Ariely about the pain of paying. Now I've come across an article by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton that is related to said video. In "Happier Spending", they argue that "...we derive greater happiness from goods we pay for immediately, but don't use for some time, than we do from goods we use now but pay for later." Or as I like to call it: prepaying for happiness :-)

There are mainly two reasons for why this works. First of all, it doesn't take away the pain of paying, which helps you to not overspend as you might be tempted to do if you can delay payment until after having used/enjoyed the purchased good/service.

Just as the sensation of burning tells you to pull your hand from the stove, the pain of paying can keep spending in check. This isn't just a metaphor. Paying high prices for goods and services activates the region of the brain associated with the anticipation of actual physical pain.

The World At Our Fingertips, But Far From Our Hearts?

Not too long ago I was browsing the New York Times website when I stumbled upon this interesting article by Jonathan Safran Foer. It's about technology and gadgets and their influence on how (or if) we interact with our fellow human beings. Foer believes that "technology celebrates connectedness, but encourages retreat." And he seems to have the field of psychology on his side regarding this assumption:

Psychologists who study empathy and compassion are finding that unlike our almost instantaneous responses to physical pain, it takes time for the brain to comprehend the psychological and moral dimensions of a situation. The more distracted we become, and the more emphasis we place on speed at the expense of depth, the less likely and able we are to care.

What's The Deal With Fiction?

Some of you may remember that I blogged about the positive influence of fiction almost exactly a year ago. The argument was that fictional stories stories shape us for the better and make us more understanding of other people, since the majority of these tales teach us that crime doesn't pay and that the good guys ultimately win.

But the other day I read an article in the New York Times by Gregory Currie that basically says: "Not so fast. Where's the evidence for that?" Of course we like to tell ourselves that it's true, especially if we count ourselves among those that enjoy reading great literature. Yet Currie makes an interesting and important point regarding the correlation of being a good person and reading good fiction: