Booknotes - Learning From Quirkology

8/9/2019 Booknotes - Learning From Quirkology

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3) According to Eysencks studies into personality, people vary only on a handfulof fundamental dimensions, the 2 most impt of which he labeled e troversionand neuroticism!

" already think " have a good understanding of e troversion vs introversion, so "ll

write more on neuroticism! #euroticism concerns the degree to which a person isemotionally stable! $igh scorers tend to be prone to worry, have low self%esteem,set themselves unrealistic targets&goals, and fre'uently e perience feelings ofhostility and envy! "n contrast, low scorers are far more calm, rela ed andresilient in the face of failure! (hey are skilled at using humour to reduce an iety,and sometimes even thrive on stress!

onclusion after his research on astrology n personality*

(he positions of the planets at the moment of a persons birth had no magicale+ect on personality! "nstead, many people who were well aware of thepersonality traits associated with their sign, had developed into the personpredicted by the astrologers!

time twins

eople born at -mins past eleven on . /arch 01- were no more similar to theirtime twin born moments later than another person born days later!

hy do so many people believe in astrology4

Astrology and graphology do not actually need to be accurate in order to be seenas accurate! "nstead, all you have to do is give people a very general statementabout their personality, and their brains will trick them into believing that it isinsightful!

56arnum statements7 8can 9nd de9nition online " think!:

6arnum statements appear accurate because most people tend to think andbehave in surprisingly predictable ways!

(here is also a ;attery e+ect! /ost people are more than willing to believeanything that puts them in a positive light, and thus endorse statementssuggesting that they have a great deal of unused capacity or are independentthinkers!

"t would be tempting to conclude that there is no real science associated with apersons date of birth!

(empting, but wrong!

a) "t seems that a persons date of birth predicted their sporting success!


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hapter 2* >ying and deceptionEven elephants do it 8anecdotal evidence:Forillas indicate the real possibility that we arent ust humaniDing the elephantsbehavior!

hildren in an e perimentGAlmost all 3%yr%olds will not be able to resist peeking at a toy! About half of themwill lie about it to the e perimenter! 6y the time the children have reached theage of -, all of them peek, and all of them lie! (he results provide compellingevidence that lying starts to emerge the moment we learn to speak! erhapssurprisingly, when adults are shown 9lms of their children denying that theypeeked at the toy, they are unable to detect whether their darling o+spring are

lying or telling the truth!

hat are the telltale signs that give away a lie4

hats not trueG people dont really tend to avert their gaDe, nervously wavetheir hands around, or shift about in their seats!

@ideos indicated the followingG>iars are ust as likely to look you in the eye as truth%tellers, they dont movetheir hands around nervously, and they dont shift about in their seats Hifanything, they are a bit more static than truth%tellers)! eople fail to detect lies

Ithat wayJ because they are basing their opinions on behaviours that are notactually associated with deception!

=eliable di+erencesG (he answer, it seems, lies in the words we use and the wayin which we say them! hen it comes to lying, the more information you giveaway, the greater the chances of some of it coming back to haunt you! As aresult, liars tend to say less, and provide fewer details, than truth%tellers!

>iars often try to psychologically distance themselves from their falsehoods, andso tend to include fewer references to themselves, and their feelings, in theirstories!

hen it comes to relatively unimportant information, they seem to developsuperpowered memories and often recall the smallest of details! "n contrast,truth%tellers know that they have forgotten certain details, and are happy toadmit it!

=esearch has yet to con9rm e actly why body language is often misleading,whilst the language of lying is so revealing!

ICeceit is more often about leaving out information!J

onclusion from the chapterG


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5Although the lie%detecting abilities of the television viewers were no better thanchance, the newspaper readers were correct K.L of the time, and the radiolisteners scored an impressive M3L accuracy rate! hen it comes to detectinglies, people are better o+ listening rather than looking!

?potting deception visually*Nake smiles! H an Am smiles)=eal smiles HCuchenne smiles) reach the eyes! (he eyebrows are pulled down,the cheeks up, producing tiny crinkles ard the corners of the eyes! Cuchenne,5oftus and colleagues showed people slides depicting a

car accident O a red Catsun driving along a road, turning at a unction, and thenhitting a pedestrian! After seeing them, participants were fed misleading info in avery sneaky way! "n reality, the slide of the road unction had contained a stopsign! $owever, the e perimenters deceived the people by asking them to namethe colour of the car that drove through the give way sign! >ater on, theparticipants were shown a slide of the unction showing either a stop or give waysign, and asked to say which they had seen before! (he ma ority were sure theyhad originally seen a give way sign at the unction!?ubse'uently, e periments revealed that the same idea can also be used todeceive people into remembering events that havent actually happened! (he

e perimenters asked their recruiters to supply them with a picture of their familymember as a young child! (he picture was used to create a fake photographdepicting a childhood trip in a hot%air balloon! (hen the e perimenters askedtheir recruiters to supply 3 other photographs showing the person Hfamilymember) taking part in various genuine childhood events! hen theyinterviewed these participants Hfamily members), they were asked to describe asmuch as possible about each e perience in the photograph in as much detail aspossible! "n the 9rst interview almost everyone was able to remember details ofthe genuine events, but about a third also said that they remembered the non%e istent balloon trip, which some actually described in considerable detail! (he

e perimenters asked all of the participants to go away and think more about thee periences! 6y the third and 9nal interview, half of the participants rememberedthe 9ctitious balloon trip, and many described the event in some detail!8many studies, many di+ scenarios:

(he work shows that our memories are far more malleable than we would like tobelieve! Pnce an authority 9gure suggest that we have e perienced an event,most of us 9nd it diQcult to deny, and start to 9ll in the gaps from ourimagination! After a while, it becomes almost impossible to separate fact from9ction, and we start to believe the lie! (he e+ect is so powerful that sometimes itdoesnt even re'uire the voice of authority to fool us! ?ometimes we areperfectly capable of fooling ourselves! "n Cecember 01 3, American resident=onald =egan addressed the ongressional /edal of $onor ?ociety! $e decidedto relate an alleged real%life story that he had told many times before!


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8something which supposedly had happed during 2! :! (he details could notbe corroborated with oQcial records! "t turns out that the story he told wasactually a near%perfect 9t to events portrayed in the popular wartime 9lm, A ingand a rayer!

(he deceptive e+ects of suggestion do not stop at world leaders remembering9ction as fact! E actly the same techni'ues are fre'uently used by professionaldeceivers to persuade people that they have e perienced the impossible!

/agicians are honest deceivers! Rnlike most liars, they are completely openabout the fact that they are going to cheat!

sychology in the sSance room! (elling of the stories beforehand, the mediumactually reacting to the spirits actions! (he table remained completelystationary, but the medium suggested that it was levitating, using commentssuch as (hats good, /arieI%name of 9ctitious ghostJ, >ift the table higher,(he table is moving now!

Nake sensations from normal ob ects!e!g! telling people the things were meant to make people feel slightly unusual,dressing up the e periement by putting the ob ects in bo es, looking oQcial in alab coat! 8both times, the ob ects were described as specially designed devices,although they were ust a brass curtain ring and a chrome light%pull bought at ahardware shop costing -Tp and 2 pounds respectively! eople were prepared topay between 9fteen and twenty%9ve pounds after the e perimenter suggestedthe special e+ects of the ob ectsU :

6elieving K impossible things before breakfast* sychology enters the twilightDone! 8chapter on superstition, seemingly improbable coincidences8why strangecoincidences are surprisingly likely:, how people really walk on coals, the truthbehind haunted houses and the dreaded brown note of death O low fre'uencythat can allegedly vibrate peoples bowels, causing them to defecate! :

$ow does superstition kill4E!g! 6elieving in the bad luck of Nriday the 03 th ! =esearchers attribute the rise incar accident rates to drivers feeling especially nervous on the most inauspiciousof unlucky dates!E!g! year of the Nire%horse! "n apan, people believe that any woman born in this

year will have a 9ert temperament, making them highly undesirable wives! (herewas actually a 2-L decrease in the Bapanese birth rate that year Habt half amillion babies less) and an increase of more than 2TTTT induced abortions!

ould parents actually be prepared to kill their female babies simply because ofthe superstition4 "n 01KK, there was no easy method for determining the se ofa child prior to birth, and thus the only way to ensure a dearth of female o+spr

(he researcher Vanae Vaku e amined the neonatal mortality rate from accidents,poisoning, and an e ternal cause of violence between 01K0 and 01KM! (heresults were chilling! "n 01KK, the mortality rates for newborn girls, but not boys,were signi9cantly higher than the surrounding years! (his patterns caused Vaku

to conclude that Bapanese girls were indeed being sacri9ced to a folksuperstition during the year of the Nire%$orse!


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/ilgram investigated the small world phenomenon ! A letter was sent to 01people living in #ebraska, who were asked to help ensure that it made its way toa named stockbroker who worked in 6oston, and lived in ?haron, /assachusetts!

(here was a catch! articipants could not mail the letter directly to the

stockbrokerX they were allowed to send it only to someone whom they knew on9rst%name terms and whom they thought might know him!

(he result was only K people were needed to link the initial volunteer and thetarget person O giving rise to the popular notion that we are all connected by ustK degrees of separation! (he results suggest that society is much more closelyknit than might at 9rst be imagined! "n addition, by e amining the relationshipbetween people in each of the completed chains, /ilgram was able to gain someinsights into the social structure of 01KTs America! eople were far more likely topass the parcel on to someone of their own se , and most links involved friendsand ac'uaintances rather than relations!

E perimenters wondered whether lucky people have lots of small worlde periences because they know lots of people and so are, without realiDing it,making their own good fortune by constructing, and inhabiting, an especiallysmall world!"n the 6ritish version of the e periment in 2TT3, there tended to be ust fourpeople linking the initial volunteers to the target! ?ome of the chains in theirstudy provide striking illustrations of ust how well%connected apparent strangersactually are!

(he volunteers were asked to rate their general level of luckiness priort to takingpart! 3 of their volunteers actually did not send their parcels to anyone,guaranteeing that their packages would never reach the target! "nterestinglyInot really lorJ, the vast ma ority of these people had previously ratedthemselves as unlucky! (hey wanted to discover what lay behind this curiousbehavior! (hese volunteers had gone to considerable lengths to ensure that theyparticipated in the study, but had then e+ectively dropped out at the very 9rststage! (hey wrote asking why they had failed to send on the parcel! (heir replieswere telling O the ma ority said that they couldnt think of anyone they knew on a9rst%name basis who could help to deliver the parcel! As a result, from the outsetit appears that the lucky participants knew far more potential recipients for theparcels than the unlucky people and were far more successful when it came toforwarding them! (hese results provide substantial support for the notion thatlucky people are living in a much smaller world than unlucky people and thatthis, in turn, helps ma imiDe their potential for lucky small world encounters inlife!

alking on hot coals and things that go bump in the night!

(he scienti9c e planation for the feat of crossing unharmed a long bed of burningcoals Hwith a surface temperature of appro imately 0TTTYN) is that the thermalconductivity of coal is very low and, providing the bed of embers is relativelyshort, very little heat will be transferred to the walkers feet! hereas sciencewould predict that people could walk across appro imately 0- feet of embers


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without being burnt, the paranormalists boast that they can walk any distancesafely!

(his was put to the test on live television! Each of them umped o+ the bedaround the 2-%foot mark with 2 nd %degree burns to their feet! hen interviewed,they had their own e planations for their failure! "t was a remarkable

demonstration of how belief in the impossible can be bad for your health, andeven 2 nd %degree burns hadnt cause 'uestion their allegedly paranormal abilities!

Nortunately, most people dont think they possess superhuman abilities! /any,however,believe that they have e perienced e'ually strange phenomena! Abouta third of people actually believe in ghost and around one in ten claim to haveactually encountered one!

/ost of the studies to try to understand why people consistently report odde periences in certain parts of allegedly haunted locations! /ost of the studieshave involved getting members of the public to walk carefully through thelocations in a systematic way, and to describe any strange and unusualphenomena that they e perience! (hen, by e amining the type of people whoreport these e periences, and the places in which they tend to report them, onecan slowly start to piece together the psychology of haunting!

(hose who e perience strange phenomena tend to have very good imaginations! (hey are the type of people who make e cellent hypnotic sub ects, and oftencannot remember whether, for instance, on leaving the house they have actuallyturned o+ their iron or simply imagined themselves doing so! "t seems that theyare able to convince themselves that a spirit may really be somewhere! As a

result, they feel genuinely scared and cause their bodies and brains to producelots of signals associated with fear!

(he work also suggests that conte t plays a vitally important role in theproceedings!

?ome ghostly e periences really may have been the result of something strangein the air!

(his was e perienced by @ic (andy! $e was in room which contained a low%fre'uency sound wave that fell below the human hearing threshold! Ha newly9tted fan in the air e traction system)!Although these waves, usually referred to as infrasound, cant be heard, theycarry a relatively large amount of energy, and so are capable of producing weirde+ects!

"n the 01KTs, #A?As tests showered that it did possess the potential to vibratethe chest, a+ect respiration, and cause gagging, headaches and coughing!Additional work suggested that certain fre'uencies can also cause vibration ofthe eyeballs, and therefore distortion of vision! (he wave can move small ob ectsand surfaces, and can even cause the strange ;ickering of a candle ;ame! @icspeculated that some buildings may contain infrasound, and that the strangee+ects of such low%fre'uency waves might cause some people to believe that the

place was haunted!


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"nfrasound can be produced naturally from ocean waves, earth'uakes,tornadoes, and volcanoes! (hese low%fre'uency soundwaves are also a by%product of nuclear e plosions!/any animals are sensitive to fre'uencies undetectable by the human ear,including both ultrasound and infrasound!

Rltrasound group* Cogs"nfrasound group* hales, elephants, s'uid, guineafowl, rhinoceros Hthey usethese signals to migrate and to communicate over vast distances!

/yth 6usters tested the concept of brown note of death by sub ecting people tohigh levels of infrasound! Although the presenters reported feeling nauseous, thestudy failed to produce the much%rumoured e+ect!

/ost of the military and industrial work had used very high levels of infrasound,whereas @ic was speculating that much lower levels might be enough to induce aweird ghostly e perience or two!

(he e periment to test for @ics hypothesis about low%fre'uency sound

"nfrasound wave generator* M%metre%long sewage pipe with a low%fre'uencyspeaker in the middle!

?arah Angliss* Z the pipe began to resonate strip lights, furniture and otherloose odds and ends! As the pipe made very little audible noise, this was an odde perience! ?eeing ob ects vibrate for no apparent reason, it is easy to imaginehow infrasonic energy coud be mistaken for a ghostly sighting!

(he set up2 concerts staged!Each concert would consist of various pieces of contemporary piano musicperformed by Fe#"A!At . points during the concert, the audience would be asked to complete a'uestionnaire that measured their emotional response to the music, and notedown any unusual e periences, such as a tingling sensation, or suddenly feelingcold!

Bust before two of these points, the auditorium would be ;ooded with infrasound! (he two concerts would be identical, e cept for the timing of the infrasound!


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"f the generator was turned on in one piece in the 9rst show, it would be turnedo+ in that piece in the second show! (his counter%balancing procedure wouldenable us to minimiDe other sources of emotional e+ects, such as di+erencesbetween the pieces of music!>evel of infrasound produced would be on the cusp of perception, when coupled

with Fe#"As music, would help ensure that the audience were never consciouslyaware of its presence!

oncerns* (he concert rooms are not far from >ondon [oo! (hey were worriedabout causing an uproar there! H hecks revealed they had nothing to worryabout)! $ow about to the humans4 (hey 9rst tested by measuring in variousparts of the concert room! H"n case high levels were produced because of wavescombining together due to the sound bouncing around! hecks also alleviatedsuch worries! )Food news O #o member of the audience had e perienced the dreaded brown

note phenomenon!@ery good news O (he audience reported signi9cantly more strange e periencesduring pieces when they incorporated infrasound! (he e+ect was far from trivial,with people reporting, on average, about 22L more unusual e periences withinfrasound present!IAs " suspected, theme parks umped on the bandwagon to make their scaryrides scarier J

(he most curious spin%o+ was the one where academics suggested that thesame low%fre'uency waves might also play a key role in creating allegedly sacrede periences!E!g! A ?cottish #eolithic passage grave has an infrasonic resonant fre'uency,

such that a person beating a 3T%cm drum could produce powerful low%fre'uencysounds! Pthers have suggested that large organ pipes found in certain churchesand cathedrals are capable of producing similar e+ects!

(he latter was found to be true in the teams preparation for the concert! (heteam visited several churches and cathedrals that contained especially largeorgan pipes and discovered that some were indeed creating signi9cant levels ofinfrasound! (his suggests that people who e perience a sense of spirituality inchurch may be reacting to the e treme bass sound produced by the pipes!Nunny* Pne pipe manufacturer informally told the team that, given that thesounds from these pipes are inaudible, they can be viewed as either a very

e pensive way of creating a small drought, or a cost%e+ective way of helping thecongregation 9nd Fod!

(he strange science of decision making! "rrationality! sychology!

2 scenarios!?cenario 0! alculator shop! alculator costs \2T! Assistant says it will go on saletomorrow, costing only \-! Co you buy now, or the ne t day4?cenario 2! omputer shop! omputer costs \111! Assistant says it will go onsale tomorrow, costing only \1 .! Co you buy now, or the ne t day4=ational thoughts* in both instances, people have the opportunity to saveidentical amounts of money, and so it would be rational to treat them in the


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same way! $owever, MTL of people say that they would put o+ buying thecalculator, but purchase the computer right these and then!"t seems that people dont view their potential saving in absolute terms, butrather as a percentage of the amount of money they are spending! ?een inrelative terms, HM-L savings on calculator but 0!-L of computer), the former

seems to be a much better deal than the latter, and so well worth waiting for!

?ubliminal messages4

/elvin CeNleur and =obert etrano+s e periments to get people to watch ashow or buy bacon, through subliminal messages, did not show any e+ect! 6utdespite the lack of evidence of e+ect, subliminal messages were banned!

?P why the discrepancy between the e periments and Bames @icarys claims onpopcorn and oke4"t turns out that the report had been leaked to the media too early! "n fact, he

had only collected the minimum amount of data needed to 9le a patent, andadmitted that his investigations were far too small to be meaningful! (he entirepublic and political debate had been based on 9ction, not fact!

(hen what really a+ects your decisions4 "t may be much simpler than that!


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name! Rnusual names are more memorable! Rnder certain circumstances, anunusual name can be good for your career!H"n America at least) =esearch suggests that our names may in;uence the townsin which we choose to live, the career paths we follow, the person we marry, andeven the political parties we support!

/ore Nlorences in Nlorida, Feorge in Feorgia, Venneth in Ventucky, @irgil in@irginia, $elen in ?t $elen, harles in ?t harles, (homas in ?t (homas, etc!Nurther analyses suggested that these e+ects are not owing to people namingtheir o+spring after their place of birth, but rather to people drifting towardscities and towns containing their own names!

A pattern observed was that there were signi9cantly more couples sharing theinitial letter of their family name than predicted by chances! orried that thee+ect might be due to ethnic matching, the team repeated the study by focusingtheir attention on the . most common American surnames Ibut isnt that ust

because there are ust more of them around44J$ow about occupations4

(here were more dentists whose 9rst names start with Cen than >aw7, andmore lawyers whose 9rst names start with >aw, than Cen! 8?earching in onlinerecords of American Cental Assn and American 6ar Assn:$ardware and roo9ng companies* (he owners of hardware companies tended tostart with the letter $ whilst those in charge of roo9ng companies tended tostart with =! 8Rsing


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relating to the elderly was replaced with a word not associated with old age, suchas mans was skin the smooth!Pnce the participant had carefully worked their way through the sentences, andhad been thanked for taking part, the e perimenter gave directions to thenearest set of elevators! A 2 nd e perimenter was sitting in the hallway armed with

a stopwatch, timing the participants time taken to walk to the elevator! (hosewho had ust spent time unscrambling the sentences that contained wordsrelating to old age took signi9cantly longer than those who had spent time withthe non%elderly sentences! ithout realiDing it, those few words had addedyears to their lives and they were walking like elderly people!

(hinking about typical football hooligans vs thinking about typical professors! (hen they were asked to answer about .T trivial pursuit 'uestions! (he formergroup only answered .KL of the 'uestions, the other KTL! ithout people beingaware of it, their ability to answer 'uestions correctly was dramatically altered by

them simply thinking about a stereotypical football hooligan or professor!"n real life, tipping improves when people feel happier! 8mood is the most impt!Pver and abover 'uality of food, drink or service provided: "n one study, the sta+ were asked to give customers cards! $alf with an ad to a local nightclub, theother half with a oke! Boke got more tipping! eople tip more when the sun isshining, and even when waiters tell them that the sun is shining! (ippingdramatically increased when waiters introduced themselves using their 9rstname, or refer to customers by their name!

(he power of touch! (ouhing diners palm or shoulder for e actly 0!-seconds asthey gave them the bill, produced more tipping than the hands%o+ approach ofthe control condition, with palm%touching doing slightly better than a tap on theshoulder!

$ow about larger amounts of cash4@arying the music being played in a downtown wine shop! $alf of the customerswere sub ected to classical tunes, including /oDart, /endelssohn, and hopin,whilst the other half heard pop songs, including Nleetwood /ac, =obert lant, and=ush! E perimenters observed that (he music did not a+ect how long peoplestayed in the cellar, how many bottles they e amined, or even the number ofitems bought! "nstead, it had a dramatic e+ect on ust one aspect of their

behavior O the cost of the wine they bought! hen classical music was playing,people bought bottles of wine that were, on average, over 3 times moree pensive than when pop music was playing! =esearchers believe that hearingthe classical music unconsciously made them feel more sophisticated, and thatthis, in turn, caused them to buy signi9cantly more e pensive wine!

(here is even some evidence to suggest that the same sort of subtle stimuliin;uence matters of life and death!

?uicides Rgh! #o wonder some people think only good news should be reported!Pr at least bad news be kept o+ the front page!


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An analysis of over 0.TT country music songs revealed that the lyrics often referto negative life e periences! "# the mid 011Ts, some researches wonderedwhether continual e posure to downbeat topics might make people more likely tocommit suicide (P 9nd out, they looked at the suicide rate, and the amount ofcountry music played on national radio, in .1 areas across America! Aftercontrolling for several other factors, the researchers did 9nd that the morecountry music played on the radio, the higher the suicide rate!

(he results may sound far%fetched, and have been challenged by several otherresearchers! (he basic premise, however, is supported by a wealth of other worksuggesting that that the mass media plays an important role in determiningwhether people decide to end their lives!

5 erther e+ect"n the book (he ?orrows of ikewise, if a black bo er lost, there was an increase in the number ofblack, but not white, people killed!

All of this adds up to one simple fact! (he ways in which we think and feel arefre'uently in;uenced by factors outside our awareness!

"nching forward in the polls!


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Although height no longer o+ers any physical advantage in life now, our primatebrains hold on to their evolutionary past, and so still associate tall people withsuccess* a faulty but persuasive perception that plays out in various ways!

(his shows up in marriage rates of olish men H hildless, implying unmarried,

men were about 3 cm shorter than men who had at least 0 child! (he onlye ceptions to the pattern were men born in the 013Ts! Cunbar believes that thiswas because they emerged into the marriage mkt ust after 2 when singlemen were relatively scarce and so women had little choice!"t also matters with the /ehinaku in central 6raDil! (he taller the man, the morefemale mates he had access to, with the three tallest men having had as manya+airs as the M shortest men!

Coes height also matter when it comes to careers4 "t seems so! "n the 01.Ts, tallsalesmen were more successful than their shorter colleagues! A 01 T surveyfound that more than half the EPs of Americas Nortune -TT companies were atleast K ft fall! /ore recent research shows that when it comes to height in theworkplace, every inch counts!Every inch above average corresponds to an additional \M 1 in pay each year!

"# politicsPf the .3 American presidents, only - have been below average height, and ithas been over 0TT years since voters elected someone who was shorter thanaverage! (heres also evidence to suggest that some candidates recogniDe theimportance o height with voters, and take steps to make the most of anyadvantage!

(he psychological relationship between status and height works in bothdirections #ot only do we think that tall people are more competent, but alsothat competent people are tall! (his e plains why people are often surprised todiscover that some $ollywood starts are below average height! Author =alphVeyes speculated about the fact that so many actors are short in his book! Veyesthought that some smaller people have a need to show that they are strong andovercome their height disadvantage by developing strong personalities!

(his relationship leads to an interesting phenomenon O that the perceived heightof a person can change with their apparent status!

@oters tend to see their own candidates as taller than the opposition! 6yanalyDing the number of people who think a particular candidate is taller, theresearcher found a correspondence to who won the election!

"f the face 9ts

(he e+ects of facial hair on perceived personality! men were photographed with all their original facial hair! #e t, each had a

photograph taken when they had a goatee and moustache, then ust amoustache, and 9nally when they were clean%shaven! (here was a positiverelationship between the amount of beard and ad ectives like masculine, mature,dominant, self%con9dent and courageous! Rnfortunately, he failed to ask aboutone important trait* honesty!


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(he hidden in;uence of $ollywood!Froup 0 atched the movie ride of the


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Although men are traditionally seen as being shallow and udging women very'uickly, their 9ndings suggested that women were making up their minds much'uicker than men, with .-L of womens decisions being made in under 3Ts,compared to ust 22L of mens decisions! /en have only a few seconds toimpress a woman, emphasiDing the importance of opening comments!

(hose more skilled in seduction encouraged their dates to talk about themselvesin an unusual, fun, 'uirky way! (he top%rated males best line was* "f you were on?tars in their Eyes, who would you be4 hilst the top%rated female asked* "f youwere a piDDa topping, what would you be4 hy are these lines successful4 Afunny shared e perience promoted a sense of closeness and attraction!

(he psychology of personal adsA MTL this is me vs 3TL this is what "m looking for balance attracted thegreatest number of replies!/en can accurately predict whether the ad written would attract the ladies ornot! (hey were on average 1TL correct!"# contrast, women had very little idea about what really attracted men!

(he implication for women using personal ads is simple* "f you want to attractlots of potential beaus, get a guy to write your ad!

hats the worlds funniest oke4hats the psychology of humour4

(he top okes had one thing in common O they create a sense of superiority inthe reader!

lato, and proponents of the superiority theory believe that the origin oflaughter lies in the baring of teeth akin to the roar of triumph in an ancient

ungle duel! 6ecause of these animalistic and primitive associations, lato wasnot a fan of laughter! $e thought that it was wrong to laugh at the misfortune ofothers, and that hearty laughter involved a loss of control that resulted in peopleappearing to be less than fully human! "n fact, the father of modern%dayphilosophy was so concerned about the potential moral damage that could becaused by laughter that he advised citiDens to limit their attendance atcomedies, and never to appear in this lowest form of the dramatic arts!

Bust as worrying, okes along those lines cause people to hold the butt of the okes in poor light, and even the people reading okes about themselves actually

a+ect their con9dence and behavior, and so actually create world in whichstereotypes depicted in the okes become a reality!

=esearchers found that 02L of male comedian scripts contained self%disparaginghumour, compared with K3L of female scripts!Pne of the funnier okes at the early stages is the one with ?herlock $olmes and

atson losing their tent while camping!

(he oke that went on to win the best oke submitted by a well%known scientistor science write category was*

A man walking down the street sees another man with a very big dog! (he man says* Coes your dog bite4 (he other man replies* #o, my dog doesnt bite!


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(he 9rst man then pats the dog, has his hand bitten o+ , and shouts* "thought you said your dog didnt bite!7

(he other man replies* (hats not my dog!

(hey actually tried to see if computers could create okes

Pne of the most successful one was* hat kind of murderer has 9bre4 A cerealkiller!

" love puns!

hat happens in humans brains when theyre laughing4 (he left brain plays a key role in setting up the initial conte t of the oke, whilst asmall area in the right hemisphere provides the creative skills necessary torealiDe that the situation can be seen in a completely di+erent, and often surreal,way! (his work supported other research showing that people who havee perienced damage to the right hemisphere are less able to understand okes,

and so dont see the funny side of life! H6ut they still respond to slapstick) "t isonly that they have lost the ability to work out why certain incongruities arefunny, and others arent!

(he winning animal oke was (wo ducks were sitting in a pond! Pne of the ducks said* ]uack! (he other ducksaid* " was going to say that

(he V sound has long been seen by comedians and comedy writers as beingespecially funny! "t may be due to a rather odd psychological phenomenonknown as facial feedback! eople smile when they feel happy! $owever, there issome evidence to suggest that the mechanism also works in reverse* that is, thatpeople feel happy simply because they have smiled!?ome researchers found it was true! articipants udged how funny a cartoon waswhile either holding a pencil between their teeth, without touching their lips, orsupport the end of the pencil with ust their lips, and not their teeth! (he formeractually forced the face into a smile, and the latter into a frown! (hose who hadtheir faces forced into a smile felt happier, and found the artoons much funnier,than those who were forced to frown!

(he contagious nature of laughter! $alf the people responded to the

e perimenters smile with another smile! ?o instead of ?mile, and the wholeworld smiles with you, it is more like ?mile, and half the world smiles with you!

(he psychology of comedians! Hnationally known and earning K%9guresalaries)(he vast ma ority of the group possessed above average intelligenceHwith few achieving the classi9cation of genious), TL had sought psychotherapyat some point in their lives, and nearly all were e tremely an ious about thepossibility of their star status fading away! (he problem was that their an ietyhad to be allayed and they had to be reassured that they were doing well!

eople who spontaneously use humour to cope with stress have especially

healthy immune systems, are .TL less likely to su+er a heart attack and strokes,e perience less pain during dental surgery, and live .!-years longer than most!


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(he relationship between 9nding the world funny and the inner lining of bloodvessels! hen such vessels e pand they increase blood ;ow around the body,and promote cardiovascular well%being! Pverall, participants blood ;ow droppedby around 3-L after watching the stress%inducing 9lms, but rose by 22Lfollowing the more humourous material! Pn the basis of the results, theresearchers recommend that people laugh for at least 0-mins each day!=esearch on hospital patients recovering from orthopaedic surgery! Pne groupwatched funny 9lms of their choice, one group watched serious 9lms of theirchoice, and the e perimenters secretly monitored the 'uantity of ma or pain%relievers that the patients consumed via a self%controlled pump! Nirst group used

ust over KTL less pain%relieving drugs than those looking at the serious movies!Another group were not allowed to select which comedy 9lms to watch, butinstead were given the movies selected by others! (his group administeredsigni9cantly more drugs than either of the other groups, scienti9cally provingthat there is nothing more painful than watching a comedy that doesnt make

you laugh!A studys results suggests that e posure to religious material actually preventspeople from using humour to help ease the stressful e+ects of everyday hassles!

(here were large di+erences in how funny the okes were to people from di+erentcountries! anadians laughed least at the okes! Fermans found the okes funnierthan people from any other country!

(he top%rated Ferman oke was* hy is television called a medium4 6ecause it isneither rare nor well done!New other di+erences emerged!Pn the whole, people from one country found the same okes funny and unfunny!

(he top%rated American oke was the one about weasels! robably because Cave6arry had been successful, and managed to make the top American oke weasel%oriented! Hhis column in the newspaper suggested that people send in such okesand to rate them the funniest)!

(he very top oke was* (wo hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses! $e doesnt seemto be breathing and his eyes are glaDed! (he other guy whips out his phone andcalls the emergency services! $e gasps, /y friend is dead hat can " do4 (heoperator says, alm down! " can help! Nirst, lets make sure hes dead! (here issilence, then a shot is heard! 6ack on the phone, the guy says PV, now what4=ated funny by --L of people!

(he oke had been submitted by a psychiatrist from /anchester in 6ritain namedFurpal Fosall! $e e plained how he sometimes told the oke to cheer up hispatients, noting that* Z it makes people feel better, because it reminds themthat there is always someone out there who is doing something more stupid thanthemselves!

(he universally worlds funniest oke probably doesnt really e ist, as people 9nddi+erent things funny! (he author believes that they uncovered the worlds

blandest oke O the gag that makes everyone smile but very few laugh out loud!As with so many 'uests, the ourney was far more important than the


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destination! Along the way they looked at what makes us laugh, how laughtercan make you live longer, how humour should unite di+erent nations, anddiscovered the worlds funniest comedy animal!

"t turns out, they actually managed to track down the source of the oke "t wasfrom a 01-0 66 programme called >ondon Entertains*/ichael 6entine* " ust came in and found him lying on the carpet there!

eter ?ellers* Ph, is he dead4/ichael 6entine* " think so!

eter ?ellers* $adnt you better make sure4/ichael 6entine* All right! Bust a minute!H?ound of two gunshots)

eter ?ellers* $es dead!

(his is likely to have been material written by ?pike /illigan!

(he oke the author 9nds funniest is the one about the dogs telegraph with 1woofs!

?inner or saint4 (he psychology of the when we help, and when we hinder!/ost people will say that they will behave in a way that is keeping with thesocietal norms of the day, but actually behaved 'uite di+erently! "t all adds up toone simple point! Asking people to rate how nice they are is unlikely to yield agenuine insight into anything other than their ability to deceive themselves andothers!

rofessor Bohn (rinkausPbservation at railway stations* M1L of male sports shoe wearers chose white,vs ust 3.L of female wearers!#umber of times weather forecasters said their predictions had been accuratewith the number of times they were actually correct! Pnly .1L of the allegedlyaccurate predictions were right!"# inner%city estates, the number of people wearing baseball caps with theirpeaks turned to the back is dropping at a rate of 0TL per year!#umber of times that interviewees on television chat shows used the word yeswhen answering 'uestions Hof the .01 'uestions analysed, yes was used -3times, e actly 00M times, absolutely 2.1 times)

(he surprising predictability of human nature

$e asked hundreds of his students to think of any odd number between 0T and-T! (he ma ority chose 3M! hen asked to name any even number between -Tand 0TT, most said K !M-L of people who owned attachS cases with number locks had not changed the

factory settings on their cases, and they could be opened with the numbers T%T%T!


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hysicist =ichard Neynman describes how he used the above predictability togain access to top%secret documents when he was working on the developmentof the atomic bomb at an american army base in >os Alamos! Pn one occasionhe opened a colleagues safe by trying various combinations he thought a

physicist might use O the winning numbers were 2M%0 %2 , after themathematical constant, e^2!M0 2 ! Another time he discovered that no one hadbothered to change the generic factory settings to one of the largest safes on thebase, which could have been opened by an unskilled thief within minutes!

(rinkaus noted how his personal belongings, including single socks, umbrellas,and one glove from each pair, often seem to disappear! $e investigated andfound that he was losing over 3 times as many left% as right%hand gloves! (hiscaused him to speculate that he might be removing his right%hand glove 9rst,pushing it down into his pocket, then removing his left%hand glove, and pushing it

on top of the glove already there! "f this was true, then his left%hand glove wouldbe nearer to the top of the pocket, and more likely to fall out during the course of the day!

/issing teaspoons!TL of the researchers teaspoons went missing! -TL within the 9rst 0 days!

3KL of people said they had stolen a teaspoon at some point in their lives, with0 L admitting to such a theft in the last 02 months!

(he researchers also note that the institutes level of disappearing teaspoons,multiplied by the entire /elbourne workforce, suggests that 0 million teaspoonsgo missing each year in /elbourne aloneX if these sppons were laid end to end,

they would stretch around the coastline of /oaDambi'ue!

(rinkauss work into dishonesty and antisocial behavior!"n #orth AmericaH0113)* -L of shoppers in e press lines were breaking therules by having more than 0T items in their basket!"n 2TT2, when repeated, the percentage had risen to 13L!

ro ected forward, those 9gures suggest that by 2T00, no one in the e press linewill have ten items or less in their basket!A new form of dubious behavior was grouping their things in groups of ten, andsaying they would pay each one separately! TL of these transgressors werefemale van drivers!"n 0111, he noted that 1KL of female van drivers e ceeded the speed limit Hneara school), compared to ust KL of male van drivers! 1.L of motorists failed tocomply with stop signs, versus 11L of female van drivers! "n 2TT0, logging 2TTinstances in which motorists had failed to keep a bo ed intersection clear, andfound that .TL of the incidents involved women driving vans! "n 2TT2, hecounted instances of people parking their vehicles in a prohibited 9re Done at ashopping centre! omen van drivers accounted for3-L of all violations!$e put forward 2 e planations! Nirst, he has speculated that women van driversare inadvertently carrying over from the workplace the now in concept ofempowerment! According to this approach, women are still getting used to their

new%found power in society, and may have developed an unconscious need tooutdo behaviours previously associated with men, such as the above!


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Alternatively, these drivers may be ahead of the game in terms of the moraldecline of society, and acting as an omen of things to come!

(esting the honesty of a nation Bust over two%thirds of people kept 0Tpound notes they didnt deserve that was

coming from a cash machine, with some returning several times to make themost of the opportunity! (he most dishonest one returned on 2T occasions!Everybody took the money from a newsagent when they were given too muchchange! "# variations of this e periment Hchange given 'uietly, change countedfor them), only 0 person pointed out the error! Ninally, market researchersinterviewed these people who had ust been dishonest! (hey asked 'uestionssuch as* Cid they think ournalists were honest4 ould the ]ueen be trusted4 "fyou were given too much change in a shop, would you own up and return themoney4 Rntil the 9nal 'uestion, everyones answers were fast and clear! #o,


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rofessor Boseph Norgas had a man and woman drive around Fermany, Nrance,?pain and "taly in a grey @ 6eetle! (hey drove through various towns of roughlythe same siDe, and tried their best to be at the front of traQc when the traQclights showed red! As the lights turned green, they simply sat in the car, butcarefully noted down how the driver directly behind them used his&her horn,including the time elapsed before the 9rst honk, and the duration of honking!

(his was dangerous work!"talians were most impatient, honking their horns, on average, after about -seconds! #e t were the ?panish at about Ks! Nrench at about Ms! Fermans provedthe most patient, at about M!-s!

"n this initial part of the study, the e perimenter had been keen to ensure thatthe motorists were not in;uenced by the nationality of the stationary drivers! Northis reason, the 6eetle carried a highly salient Australian insignia! According tothe researchers, this more or less satis9ed the re'uirement of a generic foreign

car, representing a nation with a presumably neutral national stereotype!2 nd stage of study! Australian insignia swapped for Ferman! (his time, the"talians, Nrench and ?paniards all honked 'uicker! "talians holding o+ for ust 3 s,?panish and Nrench at about .s! "n Fermany, however, it was slower, e tendingto s! Ithey seem like the most consistent! Almost neutral J?omething as simple as an insignia had instigated feelings of similarity ordissimilarity, and had a signi9cant impact on the time before drivers started tohit their horns!

Another e periment illustrated how something as simple as a bumper sticker hasa large impact on whether people help or hinder others, even when it is their ob

to be fair and impartial!

ould people be persuaded to help a stranger because the two of them shared acompletely meaningless symbol of similarity, i!e! date of birth4 E periment wassupposedly on astrology!

About 0&3 of volunteers who believed that they did not share a birthday, werewilling to help the stranger read and criti'ue a .page essay! 2&3s of thecoincidence group agreed! (he same e+ect causes people to turn a blind eye toother peoples crimes and misdemeanours! Hin this e periment, it was =asputin!)

hen participants thought they shared a birthday with the mad monk, they wereprepared to overlook his wrongdoings and evil deeds, and found him signi9cantlymore likeable!

@iolence on television!"n 01M0, one researcher found that violent incidents were shown on primetimenetworks at the rate of times an hour! Another survey, conducted a few yearslater, found that childrens programming was saturated with violence, with M0Lof shows containing at least one violent act!Pne recent survey estimated that by the time children leave primary school, theywill have witnessed an average of TTT murders, and over 0TTTTT acts of other

violence on television!


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3 content%speci9c shows were shown in /edical entre, and people wereselected to watch the speci9c episodes! 0 was where the setting was a hospitalorderly lost his ob, had no way of caring for his sick wife and child! $e smashedopen several fund%raising collection bo es, stole the money, and wasnt caughtby the police! (he 2 nd , same setting, but he was caught! (he 3 rd , was entirelydevoid of any violence! (he viewers were asked to watch a designated episode,

(hey were then invited to complete a simple 'uestionnaire about the charactersin the episode, and the commercials shown during the shows break!=espondents were told that after the broadcast they could claim a new radio inreturn for their participation, and were directed to pick it up from a downtown5Fift Cistribution entre7!

(he centres were actually fake! hen viewers arrived they walked into an emptyoQce, and encountered a notice saying* e have no more transistor radios todistribute! (his distribution centre is closed until further notice! "t was designedto elicit a sense of frustration in participants! (he same room also contained a

charity gift bo on one of the walls! (he bo was over;owing with cash and wouldhave proved a temptation to anyone of dishonest intent! (he e perimenters hadeven carefully placed a one%dollar note dangling from the bo to tempt thoseunwillingly to actually break it open! (his clever set%up allowed /ilgram todiscover whether those who had seen the stealing were more likely to do it! Aftera few moments, the participants tried to retrace their steps and leave thebuilding! "t was then they discovered that the door that they had used to enterthe oQce was locked, and thus had to follow a series of e it signs! (hese signsled them into a small room, wherein they were met by a clerk who e plained thatthere were radios available, and gave the participant their gift!

Almost 0TTT came to the centre!#ew ouis* 2L who watched the neutral version did it! (hose who watched the onewhere it was unpunished, 3L did it!

(here was a time delay in these e periments! (o eliminate it, they tried to do it on the streets! Rnfortunately it attracted thewrong crowd! eople in #ew


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$is other contribution had a much larger impact, and involved devising a methodthat is still used by psychologists around the globe! (he simple idea concernedthe innocent act of inadvertently dropping an envelope in the street!

(he 9rst line of the address was either Nriends of the #aDi arty, Nriends of the

ommunist arty, and /edical =esearch Associates! MTL of the envelopesaddressed to /=A were returned, compared to ust 2-L of either of the other 2!

(he 9ndings demonstrated that this simple techni'ue could be used to gaugepublic opinion without ever having to ask people a simple 'uestions! "# doing so,it as a clever way to 9nd out what they actually thought about an issue, ratherthan relying on notoriously unreliable surveys and opinion pools!

(he techni'ue was not without its problems! E!g! the controversial associationsmight arouse suspicion among bother the public and police! $e informed the N6",but he was later told that the original call had been forgotten and that the matterwas being investigated! (he distribution of envelopes was also problematic,sometimes the envelope being returned to the e perimenter almost immediately!$e managed to use this techni'ue to measure racial pre udice in someneighbourhoods and predicted the outcome of the 01K. presidential election!

(he techni'ues have been used often since then!

"# the 01MTs, liberal, conservative and catholic churches were e perimented!>etters were sealed, unstamped, and addressed to a local resident! (he personpicking up faced a choice, either place a stamp on the letter and drop it in apostbo , or send it postage due! (he catholics and liberals came out of the studylooking most generous, placing stamps on 1L and ML of the envelopes

respectively! Pnly .2L of those at the conservative churches were prepared toindulge in this act of kindness, however, with the remaining being returnedpostage due!

(his study was not the only one 'uestioning the altruistic intentions of thoseclaiming to be highly religious!

ould trainee ministers, after preparing a sermon on the Food ?amaritan,actually practice what they preached4Pn their way to deliver the sermon in another building, about half did not help!"n a modi9ed version of the study, they were told to get to the building A?A ! (hepercentage dropped to ust 0TL!

(he e periment reveals a great deal about human nature, including the dramatic

di+erence between peoples words and actions, and how a fast pace of life canhelp create an uncaring culture!"n another e periment, -TL of priests and -TL of used car salesmen cashed a0Tpound che'ue that was supposedly a refund, from a 9ctitious company named$onesty, where they certainly had never spent any money!

ity livingVindness

(here is some evidence that cities with a slower pace of life are more helpful! (he more people rush around, the less time they have to devote to factors thatare peripheral to their main goals! ities living life in the fast lane had highernumbers of smokers, and increased rates of coronary heart disease! Nurther


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analyses showed that the speed of walking, the L of people wearing watches ineach city, were especially good predictors of the problem!

$ighly individualistic societies are less caring than collectives! (he e+ects alsostart young, with . yr old childrens stories containing di+erent content!

#arratives produced by "ndonesian children included more friendly and helpfulcharacters than those created by children from America, Fermany or ?weden!

Pne of the most dramatic studies demonstrating the impact of living in a caringcommunity was carried out by social psychologist hilip [imbardo! (hee periment is the famous prison e periment!

$ow to create a caring community4 A sense of social responsibility4ompare 2 e periments*

0 st part of study* researcher posed as volunteer worker, asking to place a sign intheir garden to help cut speeding in the area! 6ut it was a big sign which would

completely ruin the look of the persons house and garden! (P make the point,the researcher even showed a picture Hof how ugly it would be)! #ot surprisingly,few took up the o+er!2 nd part* researcher approached 2 nd set of residents, asked almost the e actsame 'uestions, but the sign was much smaller! Pnly 3%inches s'uare and said6E A ?ANE C="@E=!"t was a small re'uest and almost everyone accepted! (wo weeks later, theresearcher returned and now asked them to display the bigger sign! (his time,MKL of people agreed to place the large ugly placard in their garden!

(he e perimenters believe that agreeing to accept the 9rst small sign had a

dramatic e+ect on how residents saw themselves! ?uddenly, they were the typeof people that helped out! (hey were good citiDens, people who were prepared tomake sacri9ces for the greater good! ?o, when it came to making a decisionabout the big, horrible sign, they were much more likely to say yes! "t is a strikinge ample of how to create cooperation! Fet people to agree to the small, and it ismuch easier to persuade them not to worry about the big!

$e redid the pace of life study and ?ingapore topped it! hat a shocker! 6ut$ong Vong is missing!

(he biggest changes were found in FuangDhou and ?ingapore! (he people in

both cities nowH2TTK) take, on average, .s less to walk KTfeet than in the early1Ts, suggesting that the pace of life there is increasing around four times fasterthan in many parts of the world!

Anyway, a summary of 0T factoids you might want to use to initiateconversations! (he 0T factoids that were most likely to provoke goodconversation at even the dullest of gatherings!

0T! eople asked to write down a few words describing a university professoranswer more (rivial ursuit 'uestions correctly than those describing a footballhooligan!1! omens personal ads would attract more replies if they were written by aman! (he opposite is not true of mens ads!


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! (he /ona >isa seems enigmatic because >eonardo da @inci painted her so thather smile appears more striking when people look at her eyes than at her mouth!M! omen van drivers are more likely than others to take more than 0T itemsthrough the e press lane in a supermarket, break speed limits, and park inrestricted areas!

K! ?ome seemingly ghostly e periences, such as feeling an odd sense ofpresence, are actually due to low%fre'uency sound waves produced by the windblowing across an open window!-! ords containing the V sound O such as duck, 'uack, and Vrusty the lown %are especially likely to make people laugh!.! eople born during the summer are luckier than those born in the winter Otemperature di+erences around the time of birth makes summer%borns moreoptimistic and open to opportunities!3! (he best way of detecting a lie is to listen rather than look O liars say less, givefewer details, and use the word " less than people telling the truth!2! (he di+erence between a genuine and a fake smile is all in the eyes O in agenuine smile, the skin around the eyes crinklesX in a fake smile it remains much;atter!0! eople would rather wear a sweater that has been dropped in dog faeces andnot washed, than one that has been dry%cleaned but used to belong to a massmurder!

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Booknotes - Learning From Quirkology