In Brief: Hot Picks

Every Bite a Delight

Dieting experts have been saying for years that if you eat slower you'll eat less. But a new study shows that this only works for men, probably because women already eat slowly. Intake is reduced even more when you start the meal at normal speed and then slow down.

These Colors Don't Run

Subconscious cues related to America (such as seeing a flag) increase aggressive reactions to provocation in both Republicans and Democrats who follow American political news, but not in those who don't. You can thank programming in which the U.S. stars as a perpetrator, victim, and home of violent acts.

Watch the Hands

After an interaction, you're better able to recall your body language (smiling, nodding, gesturing, self-touching) if you were more focused on the other person or some joint activity than if you were focusing on the impression you were making. The cognitive load of being self-conscious overwhelms other facets of awareness. Overall, recall is best for smiling and worst for self-touching.

For the People

Open-source projects are like high-tech barn-raising. Anyone can lend a hand. But do people who offer content to sites like Wikipedia have different motivations from those who donate computer code to enterprises like Linux? Based on surveys, Wikipedia contributors are more altruistic than software developers, who place more emphasis on reputation and skill development.

30%

Thirty percent of Americans say an Oprah endorsement would influence their presidential vote—15% for and 15% against.

The Dark Arts

Many romanticize mental illness as a turbulent wellspring of creativity. Creative people have the strongest feelings about this "mad genius" stereotype, but they're split into two camps, either strongly endorsing or disparaging a sickness-creativity correlation. (Its reality is still debated.) Also, people who see themselves as creative support the stereotype more strongly than those who don't.

Hold That Thought

When it comes to dating, guys have to walk a fine line. Be the first mover, but don't push. Be assertive but not aggressive. "Men are receiving conflicting messages," says Diana Sanchez, a social psychologist at Rutgers University. And Sanchez has new data suggesting that when subconsciously reminded of sex, men actually suppress thoughts of dominance; they may have internalized social mores prescribing respect for women's sexual wishes.

In studies with colleague Amy Kiefer, men first saw a sex-related term (climax, oral) or a neutral term (table, brick) for a fraction of a second, then had to decide whether a string of letters was a real word. Subjects were slower to recognize words associated with dominance (coerce, fierce) as real words if they'd been primed with the sexy words than the neutral ones.

To draw a link to social attitudes and actual sexual behavior, the researchers also asked men how important it was for them to resemble "the ideal man" and how "directive" they were in bed. The less men supported the macho male role, and the less they took command at playtime, the more sex-dominance inhibition they showed. While some part of rape restraint is surely innate, Sanchez suspects it's also learned, and that the times are changing: "Men are responding more to women's desires." —Matthew Hutson

The Gentleman's Friends Prefer Blondes

Is it a coincidence that you and your friends tend to share the same reaction to People's choice of Sexiest Man Alive? How you rate others' attractiveness depends in part on whom you spend time with, according to a paper in Perception. Men and women were asked to rate the relative beauty of male and female faces, and their preferences were compared to those of their siblings, spouses, friends, and total strangers. As it turns out, your aesthetic preferences are closer to those of people familiar to you than to those of strangers. One explanation: "All those preference discussions you have with your friends, about what you like and dislike, shape people's ideas even about things researchers assume are kind of hard-wired," says Matthew Bronstad of Brandeis University. —Meredith Knight

Super Egos

Celebrities are savvy psychotherapy customers. "They're more articulate about their sense of my skills," says Shannon Hanrahan of Beverly Hills. "Judgment is a product of their professional world." It's enough to put any shrink on edge—especially when you're already balancing conflicting temptations. On the one hand, Barry Lubetkin, a Manhattan psychologist who regularly sees big names, notes the common urge to connect as a friend or go easy. He says many therapists don't want to upset their clients and drive them away because a high-profile client is such an ego boost: "This person who's very well-known is listening to their advice." One Manhattan therapist says the celebs he's seen "considered me one more person on whom to vent," but most seem to welcome a challenge. These clients are very tuned in to whether they're being patronized, and Tania Paredes of Miami says she's been thanked for providing "a reality check." But danger lurks in that direction too: "Sometimes there's a tendency to really show off what you can do and come on too strong," Lubetkin says. —Matthew Hutson