The Most Attractive Lip Size And Shape

The most attractive lip size and shape might surprise you. A 50 percent boost is the best, but pay attention to the ratio of upper to lower lip.

The most attractive lip size and shape might surprise you. A 50 percent boost is the best, but pay attention to the ratio of upper to lower lip.

Many women are paying for cosmetic ‘enhancements’ to their lips that are making them less attractive, if new research is anything to go by.

The overfilled upper lip may not actually be the most attractive look, a study published in the journal JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery finds.

Scientists at the University of California showed a series of pictures of women’s faces to 150 judges.

Most attractive lip shape and size

Both the overall size of the lips and the ratio of top lip to bottom lip was digitally manipulated to see what was most attractive.

First they wanted to look at the general size of the lips, to see how much bigger was actually attractive (see below).

It turned out that increasing lip size by around 50 percent was the most attractive.

(Of course, this 50 percent figure will depend on how big your lips are to begin with.)

This one is marked ‘C’ in the image above.

Are heavy lower lips attractive?

Next they looked at the ratio of top lip to bottom lip (see below).

Bear in mind that many celebrities choose something that looks like the image on the right, marked ‘D’, with a heavy upper lip.

It turned out that the picture on the far-left marked ‘A’ was actually seen as most attractive.

Unsurprisingly to anyone with functioning eye balls, ‘D’, with a heavy upper lip, was the least attractive look.

In fact, it was the heavier lower lip that was rated most attractive.

Anyone thinking of augmenting their lips would do well to heed the advice of this study’s authors:

“We advocate preservation of the natural ratio or achieving a 1:2 ratio in lip augmentation procedures while avoiding the overfilled upper lip look frequently seen among celebrities.”

We shall have to wait with baited breath for the complementary study on the perfect ratio for a man’s lips…

The study was published in the journal JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery (Popenko et al., 2017).

Does Wearing Red Make You More Attractive?

Why wearing the colour red has a primitive effect on attraction, making both men and women more attractive.

Why wearing the colour red has a primitive effect on attraction, making both men and women more attractive.

Wearing the colour red makes both men and women more attractive to the opposite sex, studies find.

When men wear it, red sends signals of status and dominance to others.

When women wear it, the extra pull on men may have deeper, biological roots.

The study’s authors write:

“Our research demonstrates a parallel in the way that human and nonhuman male primates respond to red.

In doing so, our findings confirm what many women have long suspected and claimed – that men act like animals in the sexual realm.

As much as men might like to think that they respond to women in a thoughtful, sophisticated manner, it appears that at least to some degree, their preferences and predilections are, in a word, primitive.”

Red does make you more attractive

In one study, men were shown pictures of women in a shirt digitally coloured either blue or red.

The men were simply asked: “How pretty do you think this person is?”

Time after time, the same woman wearing red was rated as more attractive and sexually desirable than when she wore other colours, such as blue and grey.

Why red is the most attractive colour

A later study has found that men wearing red are also more attractive to women.

Professor Andrew Elliot, one of the study’s authors, said:

“We found that women view men in red as higher in status, more likely to make money and more likely to climb the social ladder.

And it’s this high-status judgment that leads to the attraction.”

Men wearing red were rated as more attractive, powerful and sexually desirable.

Professor Elliot continued:

“When women see red it triggers something deep and probably biologically engrained.

We say in our culture that men act like animals in the sexual realm.

It looks like women may be acting like animals as well in the same sort of way.”

Fascinatingly, neither sex was aware of the effect that the colour red was having on them.

The studies were published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General  (Elliot & Niesta et al., 2008; Elliot et al., 2010).

Why Are People So Mean To Nice People

Psychologists reveal why nice people sometimes get punished with meanness for their good behaviour.

Psychologists reveal why nice people sometimes get punished with meanness for their good behaviour.

People who are generous and cooperative can get punished by others for being ‘too good’, research finds.

Humans in all cultures can be suspicious of those who appear nicer or better than the rest.

Also, the top co-operators and nicest people make others look bad, so bringing them down a peg or two by being mean can be attractive to them.

That is why some of the nicest people can attract social punishment, meanness and even hatred.

The effect is even more pronounced in a competitive environment, like the workplace, the researchers found, where being shown up could have financial consequences.

Professor Pat Barclay, study co-author, said:

“Most of the time we like the cooperators, the good guys.

We like it when the bad guys get their comeuppance, and when non-cooperators are punished.

But some of the time, cooperators are the ones that get punished.

People will hate on the really good guys.

This pattern has been found in every culture in which it has been looked at.”

Why people are mean

Even relatively egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies demonstrate this phenomenon: the top hunters are socially targeted to stop them dominating the group.

Professor Barclay said:

“In a lot of these societies, they defend their equal status by bringing down somebody who could potentially lord things over everybody else.

You can imagine within an organization today the attitude, ‘Hey, you’re working too hard and making the rest of us look bad.’

In some organizations people are known for policing how hard others work, to make sure no one is raising the bar from what is expected.”

The results come from a study in which people played a cooperation game.

The top co-operators got ‘punished’ the most to avoid making the others look bad, the scientists found.

Professor Barclay thinks that being mean to co-operators may hinder people in protecting the environment or changing the status quo:

“It is a way of bringing those people back down, and stopping them from looking better than oneself in their attempts to protect the environment or address social inequality.”

The study was published in the journal Psychological Science (Pleasant & Barclay, 2018).

The Most Attractive Personality Traits, According To Research

These personality traits are more attractive in both a man and a woman.

These personality traits are more attractive in both a man and a woman.

Playfulness is one of the more attractive personality traits, psychologists have found.

Playful people are particularly keen for their partners to be playful.

The playful prefer someone who is funny, laidback and creative.

The five most attractive personality traits, though, are:

  1. kindness and understanding,
  2. intelligence,
  3. sense of humour,
  4. being fun loving,
  5. and having an exciting personality.

For a longer list of attractive personality traits, with links to the research studies, see below.

Signs of a playfulness person

Playful people enjoy teasing, wordplay, improvising and taking challenges in a light-hearted way.

They enjoy unusual things and are good at creating situations people can enjoy.

Playfulness seems to send a slightly different type of positive signal to men and women.

To women playfulness sends the signal that a man is not aggressive.

To a man it send the signal that a woman has vitality.

Dr René Proyer, the study’s first author, said:

“Therefore, this personality trait also seems important for the choice of partner — at least more so than the partner having a degree, good genes or being religious.”

The conclusions come from a survey of 327 young adults.

They were asked which traits they found desirable in a long-term partner.

Both men and women mostly agreed on the order of the traits.

However, women were more interested in a sense of humour and men in an exciting personality.

Dr Proyer said:

“Although we should be cautious while interpreting the data, this could be an indication that playful people are actually perceived as more attractive partners or that playfulness increasingly develops in the relationship.”

The study’s author write that playfulness may increase well-being:

“…individuals perceive playfulness as being beneficial to well-functioning romantic relationships by increasing the well-being of the partners, by maintaining the relationships’ excitement, and by conveying the each individual’s affection for his or her partner, and—more generally speaking—by more deeply cultivating the relationship.”

Attractive personality traits

Other personality traits often rated the most attractive to a wide variety of people include:

  • Intelligence and friendliness.
  • Kindness: when choosing a long-term partner, traits such as financial prospects and physical attractiveness are certainly important. However, it is kindness that people value above all else.
  • Being extraverted and having stable emotions: extraverts are generally outgoing, self-confident and cheerful and can also be impulsive, sensation-seekers. Emotional stability is linked to being better at dealing with stress and minor frustrations.
  • Being compassionate: being compassionate is particularly attractive to people who are highly empathetic or have a left-wing ideology.
  • Optimism: optimists mix well in long-term relationships with everyone.
  • Generosity: all kinds of generous acts are effective, from giving up time for charitable causes to just giving affection to others.
  • Non-conformity: both men and women prefer someone who ‘did their own thing’ rather than someone who ‘went along’ with everyone else.

Indeed, positive personality traits like those above can make a person appear more physically attractive.

Similarly, those displaying negative personality traits — like rudeness and unfairness — look physically less attractive to observers.

Narcissists and psychopaths

While the personality traits above are often attractive to most people, some personality traits are only attractive to certain people or in some situations.

For example:

  • Women are sometimes attracted to men with dark personality traits.
  • ‘Bad boys’ tend to be laid-back and extraverted, both of which are attractive traits — however, when narcissism and psychopathy reveal themselves, this is less attractive.
  • Although men say they prefer a smarter women, when a real living, breathing smarter women is close by, men shy away, preferring women of lower intelligence.
  • Being nice makes women more attractive to men, but can have the opposite effect for men on women.

The study was published in the American Journal of Play (Proyer & Wagner, 2015).

Dilated Pupils: 10 Messages My Eyes are Sending You

Dilated pupils can reveal how hard we’re thinking, how excited or disgusted we are, whether we’re interested and more…

Dilated pupils can reveal how hard we’re thinking, how excited or disgusted we are, whether we’re interested and more…

Our pupils, the black holes which let light into the eyes, don’t just help us see, dilated pupils can also signal what’s going on in our minds.

Here are 10 pieces of psychological research which show how dilated pupils reveal many aspects of thought.

1. Dilated pupils mean I’m thinking hard

Look into my eyes and ask me to name the cigar-smoking founder of psychoanalysis and you won’t see much change in my pupil size.

The name Sigmund Freud comes easily to my lips.

But ask me to explain the laws of cricket and watch my dilated pupils.

That’s because research has shown that the harder your brain works, the more your pupils dilate.

When Hess and Polt (1964) gave participants more and more difficult tasks to complete, their pupils got bigger and bigger.

2. My brain is overloaded

Keep watching my eyes closely and you’ll spot the point when explaining the laws of cricket gets too much.

Poock (1973) reported that when participants’ minds were loaded to 125 percent of their capacity, their pupils constricted.

It’ll be trying to explain a googly that will do it. (Don’t ask).

3. Dilated pupils and brain damage

The reason doctors and paramedics flash a light in patients’ eyes is to check their brains are working normally (and because it’s such an easy test to do).

They use the acronym PERRL: the Pupils should be Equal, Round and Reactive to Light.

If my brain is broken, say, because I’ve had a bump on the noggin, you won’t see PERRL.

There may well be other extremely subtle clues, like the blood pouring from my head.

4. You’re holding my interest

Dilated pupils can also signal whether I’m interested in what you’re saying.

White and Maltzman (1977) had participants listening to excerpts from three books: one was erotic, another involved mutilation while a third was neutral.

Their pupils widened at first for all three. But they only remained wide for the passages that were erotic or involved mutilation.

I’m likely to be interested in anything new, so my pupils will dilate a bit at first, but they’ll only stay dilated if I continue to be interested.

5. You’re turning me on

If things take a sexual turn then our eyes are also involved.

Both men and women’s get dilated pupils when they are sexually aroused (e.g. Bernick et al., 1971).

However, not everyone agrees dilated pupils are a signal of sexual arousal.

It tends to get tested by showing nude pictures to people and some argue that we’re just really interested in the nude form.

6. Dilated pupils and disgust

Just as I have dilated pupils when I’m interested or turned on, so they constrict when I’m disgusted.

Hess (1972) showed people pictures of injured children.

First people’s pupils dilated because of the shock and then they constricted to try and avoid the troubling images.

7. Whether I’m liberal or conservative

Should you happen to be carrying around pictures of politicians you might be able to work out whether I’m a liberal or a conservative just from my pupil size.

Barlow (1969) showed people pictures of Lyndon Johnson, George Wallace and Martin Luther King, Jr..

The liberals’ pupils dilated when they saw fellow liberals Johnson and King but constricted when they saw conservative Wallace.

Conservatives showed the opposite pattern.

8. I’m in pain

If you’ve had enough of this article now and want to cause me some pain in return, then why not stab me with a pencil?

If you’re watching closely you’ll see my pupils dilate.

Chapman et al. (1999) fired small electric shocks into people’s fingertips and measured how much their pupils dilated.

At maximum intensity the pupils dilated by about 0.2mm.

But that was only to a relatively tame current.

Imagine what you could do to my pupils if you plugged me into the mains.

9. I’m on drugs

…and you can narrow down the type by looking at my pupils.

Some drugs, like alcohol and opioids cause the pupils to constrict.

Others, like amphetamine, cocaine, LSD and mescaline cause dilated pupils.

Police officers know this and some use it as one way of checking if someone is off their face.

They generally look for dilated pupils to either less than 3mm or dilated to more than 6.5mm (Richman et al. 2004).

10. My personality

This one is not strictly related to pupil dilation, but it’s too good to leave out.

If you look closely at the coloured part of my eye, the iris, you might even get some clues as to my personality (Larsson et al., 2007).

Look closely for ‘crypts’ in my eyes (lines going away from the iris, labelled 1 above) and this suggests I’m a warm, tender-minded person. If you see furrows (labelled 3 above), then, watch out, I’m impulsive.

It seems that the same gene, Pax6, which affects part of the brain associated with approach-related behaviours (the left anterior cingulate cortex, if you really want to know) also induces tissue deficiencies in the iris.

Dilated pupils

As you’ll have noticed, the same pupil response can mean different things, although generally dilated pupils send a positive message and when they constrict it’s a negative one.

But exactly what it means depends on the situation (and whether someone has turned on a light).

This is all good fun to know, but can we really detect these tiny changes in people’s pupil size?

According to an fMRI imaging study, change in pupil size may be difficult for us to notice consciously, but we do seem to pick up on these very small changes unconsciously (Demos et al., 2008).

So changes in pupil size may be experienced, along with other verbal and nonverbal signals, as a gut instinct to either approach someone or run like hell.

Whether or not the eyes are windows to the soul, the pupils are certainly windows to the mind.

Image credit: Larsson et al. (2007)

Robbers Cave Experiment: How Group Conflicts Develop

The Robbers Cave experiment was a famous social psychology study of how prejudice and conflict emerged between two group of boys.

The Robbers Cave experiment was a famous social psychology study of how prejudice and conflict emerged between two group of boys.

The Robbers Cave experiment, conducted in 1954 by psychologist Muzafer Sherif, aimed to explore intergroup conflict among children.

The experiment showed that when two groups compete, it leads to hostility and negative attitudes between them.

Introducing cooperative tasks helped reduce conflict and improved relations between the groups.

The study highlighted the importance of group dynamics, demonstrating the formation of strong ingroup identities and the potential for conflict resolution through collaborative efforts.

The hidden story

However, the Robbers Cave experiment, a classic study of prejudice and conflict, has at least one hidden story.

The well-known story emerged in the decades following the experiment as textbook writers adopted a particular retelling.

With repetition people soon accepted this story as reality, forgetting it is just one version of events, one interpretation of a complex series of studies.

As scholars have returned to the Robbers Cave experiment another story has emerged, suggesting a darker conclusion that demonstrates the corrupting influence of power.

First though, the more familiar story…

Conflict in the Robbers Cave experiment

In this experiment twenty-two 11 year-old boys were taken to a summer camp in Robbers Cave State Park, Oklahoma, little knowing they were the subjects of an experiment.

Before the trip the boys were randomly divided into two groups.

It’s these two groups that formed the basis of Sherif’s study of how prejudice and conflict build up between two groups of people (Sherif et al., 1961).

When the boys arrived, they were housed in separate cabins and, for the first week, did not know about the existence of the other group.

They spent this time bonding with each other while swimming and hiking.

Both groups chose a name which they had stencilled on their shirts and flags: one group was the Eagles and the other the Rattlers.

Name calling

The two groups now established, the experiment moved into its second phase.

For the first time the two groups were allowed to find out about each other and soon the signs of intergroup conflict emerged in the form of verbal abuse.

A little name-calling wasn’t enough, though.

The experimenters wanted to increase the conflict substantially.

To do this they pitted the groups against each other in a series of competitions.

This ratcheted up the antagonism between the two groups, especially once all the team scores were added up and the Rattlers won the overall trophy for the competitive activities.

They didn’t let the Eagles forget it.

The Rattlers staked their claim to the ball field by planting their flag in it.

Later on each group started name calling at the other and singing derogatory songs.

Soon the groups were refusing to eat in the same room together.

Making peace

With conflict between the groups successfully instigated, the experiment now moved into its final phase.

Could the experimenters make the two groups kiss and make up?

First of all they tried some activities in which the two groups were brought together, such as watching a film and shooting firecrackers, but neither of these worked.

The experimenters then tried a new approach.

They took the two groups to a new location and gave them a series of problems to try and solve.

In the first problem the boys were told the drinking water supply had been attacked by vandals.

After the two groups successfully worked together to unblock a faucet, the first seeds of peace were sown.

In the second problem the two groups had to club together to pay for the movie they wanted to watch.

Both groups also agreed on which movie they should watch.

By the evening the members of both groups were once again eating together.

The groups ‘accidentally’ came across more problems over the next few days.

The key thing about each of them was that they involved superordinate goals: boys from both groups worked together to achieve something they all had an interest in.

Finally all the boys decided to travel home together in the same bus.

Peace had broken out all over.

Sherif reached an important conclusion from this study, and other similar work carried out in the 1940s and 50s.

He argued that groups naturally develop their own cultures, status structures and boundaries.

Think of each of these groups of boys as like a country in microcosm.

Each country has its own culture, its government, legal system and it draws boundaries to differentiate itself from neighbouring countries.

From these internal structures, the roots of conflict in both the groups of boys and between countries are created.

One of the reasons Sherif’s study is so famous is that it appeared to show how groups could be reconciled, how peace could flourish.

The key was the focus on superordinate goals, those stretching beyond the boundaries of the group itself.

It seemed that this was what brought the Rattlers and the Eagles back together.

Robbers Cave experiment: the other story

What is often left out of the familiar story is that it was not the first of its type, but actually the third in a series carried out by Sherif and colleagues.

The two earlier studies had rather less happy endings.

In the first, the boys ganged up on a common enemy and in the second they ganged up on the experimenters themselves.

How does this alter the way we look at the original Robbers Cave experiment?

Michael Billig argues that when looking at all three studies, Sherif’s work involves not just two groups but three, the experimenters are part of the system as well (Billig, 1976).

In fact, with the experimenters included, it is clear they are actually the most powerful group.

Much of the conflict between the two groups of boys is orchestrated by the experimenters.

The experimenters have a vested interest in creating conflict between the two groups of boys.

It was they who had the most to lose if the experiment went wrong, and the most to gain if it went right.

Power relations

The three experiments, then, one with a ‘happy’ ending, and two less so, can be seen in terms of the possible outcomes when a powerful group tries to manipulate two weaker groups.

Sometimes they can be made to play fair (experiment three), sometimes the groups will unite against a common enemy (experiment one) and sometimes they will turn on the powerful group (experiment two).

For psychologist Frances Cherry it is the second experiment which makes this analysis plausible. When the boys rebel against the experimenters, they showed understanding of how they were being manipulated (Cherry, 1995).

Although the Robbers Cave experiment is, in some sense, the ‘successful’ study, taken together with the other two it is more realistic.

In reality, Cherry argues, it is more often the case that groups hold unequal amounts of power.

Weak groups can rebel

Unequal levels of power between groups fundamentally changes the dynamic between them.

Whether it’s countries, corporations, or just families, if one group has more power, suddenly the way is open for orchestrated competitions and cooperation, not to mention manipulation.

Manipulating other groups, though, is a dangerous game, and weaker groups don’t always play by the rules set for them.

Perhaps this is the more subtle, if less enduring message of the Robbers Cave experiment and its supposedly less successful predecessors.

→ This post is part of a series on the best social psychology experiments:

  1. Halo Effect: Definition And How It Affects Our Perception
  2. Cognitive Dissonance: How and Why We Lie to Ourselves
  3. Robbers Cave Experiment: How Group Conflicts Develop
  4. Stanford Prison Experiment: Zimbardo’s Famous Social Psychology Study
  5. Milgram Experiment: Explaining Obedience to Authority
  6. False Consensus Effect: What It Is And Why It Happens
  7. Social Identity Theory And The Minimal Group Paradigm
  8. Negotiation: 2 Psychological Strategies That Matter Most
  9. Bystander Effect And The Diffusion Of Responsibility
  10. Asch Conformity Experiment: The Power Of Social Pressure

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What Is Groupthink? Definition, Examples And How To Avoid It

Groupthink is by definition a danger to effective decision-making but it can be challenged by encouraging dissent.

Groupthink is by definition a danger to effective decision-making but it can be challenged by encouraging dissent.

In government, in corporate boardrooms, every day across the land people gather in groups to make decisions.

More often than we would like these decisions turn out to be wrong, sometimes very badly wrong.

Governments waste billions, corporations go bankrupt and people suffer.

So, why do groups sometimes make such awful decisions?

Group decision-making can go wrong in a number of predictable ways, but one of the most common is groupthink.

Groupthink is a well-known psychological phenomenon, but less well-known are the techniques for fighting it.

Understanding how groupthink occurs and what can be done to fight it is vital for effective decision-making in groups, and consequently vital for well-run society and profitable businesses.

What is groupthink?

Groupthink emerges because groups are often very similar in background and values.

Groups also usually like—or at least have a healthy respect for—each other.

Because of this, when trying to make a decision, a consensus emerges and any evidence to the contrary is automatically rejected, ridiculed even.

Individual members of the group don’t want to rock the boat because it might damage personal relationships.

Groupthink research examples

The groupthink pioneer was psychologist Irving Janis.

He analysed the decisions made by three US presidents (Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon) to extend the war in Vietnam (Janis, 1982).

Groupthink, he argued, explained why they had become locked in their course of action, unable to explore alternatives.

Subsequent psychological research has backed up Janis’ arguments.

Experiments show that people are quick to adopt the majority position and, crucially, they ignore all the potential alternatives and all the conflicting evidence (Nemeth & Kwan, 1987).

How to avoid groupthink with dissent

Avoiding groupthink, Janis argued, is all about vigilant decision-making.

What this means in practice is trying to make the group aware of problems with the consensus and offer alternatives.

To do this someone in the group has to be critical.

Encouraging critical thinking is not easy, but it is possible:

  • Devil’s advocate: someone in the group, but not usually the leader, is assigned the role of trying to spot holes in the decision-making process. This approach was tested by Hirt and Markman (1995) who encouraged experimental participants to generate multiple solutions. The results showed that these participants demonstrated lower susceptibility to group bias.
  • The power of authentic dissent: unfortunately for the devil’s advocate, they can easily be ignored because people don’t take them seriously. Better, then, is someone who really believes in their criticisms. Nemeth et al. (2001) found that when compared with a devil’s advocate, authentic dissenters were more likely to provide a greater quantity and quality of effective solutions.
  • Nurturing authentic dissent: group leaders play a crucial role in encouraging (or crushing) dissent. Vinokur et al. (1985) analysed the decisions made by a panel investigating new medical technologies. The best outcomes were associated with a facilitative chairperson who encouraged participation from the group rather than one who was too directive.

These techniques for eradicating group-think, then, revolve around encouraging dissent.

In the interests of making a good decision, someone has to be critical otherwise mistakes are easily made.

This may seem relatively obvious but there are all sorts of reasons why dissent is never expressed (from Nemeth & Goncalo, 2004):

  • Organisations often recruit on the basis of who will ‘fit in’ and not ‘rock the boat’. The stereotypical yes-man often emerges, perhaps unconsciously, as perfect for the job.
  • Group cohesiveness is highly valued for productivity (‘are you a team-player?’): groups who are always bickering are perceived as getting less work done.
  • Disagreement and the expression of conflicting opinions makes people uncomfortable and they try to suppress it, partly because:
  • Dissent is easily misinterpreted as disrespect or even a personal attack.
  • Dissenters are often labelled as trouble-makers and targeted for either conversion to the consensus or outright expulsion from the group.

Dissenters are rare

As a result dissenters in groups are likely to be an endangered species.

To be effective dissenters must tread a fine line, avoiding pointless confrontation or personal attacks; instead presenting minority viewpoints in an even-handed, well-modulated and authentic fashion.

For their part the majority has to fight its instinct to crush dissenters and recognise the risk they are taking in being critical of the majority opinion.

Although the majority consensus may well be right, it can be more secure in its decision if dissent is encouraged and all the options are explored.

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What Is Reverse Psychology And When Does It Work?

Reverse psychology works best with people who are contrary or resistant.

Reverse psychology works best with people who are contrary or resistant.

Reverse psychology is when you try to get someone to do something by telling them to do the opposite.

In theory, people don’t like to have their freedom restricted, so they rebel.

But what does the psychological research tell us?

Do people really react to restrictions on their freedom by wanting the restricted object more?

When reverse psychology works

Under some circumstances, the answer is yes, as these two experiments demonstrate:

“…two-year-olds who are told not to play with a particular toy suddenly find that toy more appealing. […] Students who are told they have their choice of five posters, but then are told one of them is not available suddenly like that one more…” (from the excellent textbook Social Psychology and Human Nature)

Warning labels can have the same perverse effect:

“…warning labels on violent television programs across five age groups (ranging from 9 to 21 years and over) were more likely to attract persons in these groups to the violent program than information labels and no label.” (Chadee, 2011)

The idea is that when you are told you can’t have or do something, the following three things happen:

  • You want it more.
  • You rebel by reasserting your freedom.
  • You feel angry at the person restricting your freedom.

In other words, you are immediately turned back into an irritating teenager.

Using reverse psychology

Reverse psychology works best with people who are contrary or resistant.

In contrast, agreeable people are likely to go along with you anyway so you don’t need to use it.

Watch out, though, people hate being manipulated.

If they sense you are trying to get them to do something by telling them to do the opposite, a form of reverse reverse psychology may operate.

So they end up doing what you tell them, just to spite your attempts to control them.

In real life

Reverse psychology is a tricky customer both in real life and in the psych lab.

Researchers have found it difficult to pin down exactly when reverse psychology works and when it doesn’t.

Here are a few factors likely to increase psychological reactance:

  • The more attractive and important the option that’s being restricted, the greater the psychological reactance.
  • The greater the restriction of freedom, the greater the psychological reactance.
  • Arbitrary threats produce high reactance because they don’t make sense, which makes people more rebellious.

In real life reverse psychology likely works best when used subtly and sparingly on people who are resistant to direct requests.

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The Most Attractive Jobs For A Romantic Partner

Two dating apps suggest the most attractive jobs for both a man and woman.

Two dating apps suggest the most attractive jobs for both a man and woman.

Pilots, entrepreneurs, firefighters and doctors are the most attractive professions for men, dating app behaviour suggests.

For women, it is physical therapists, interior designers, entrepreneurs (again!) and PR people that top the list.

(If your profession isn’t here, check out the full list at the bottom of the article.)

At least these are the most ‘right-swiped’ professions on Tinder, according to the company.

Dating sites sometimes release these morsels of information and we have no idea how scientific they are.

Alternative claims for the most attractive jobs come from Badoo, another dating company.

Most attractive jobs for a woman

They surveyed 5,000 heterosexual men and women aged 18 to 30 in the UK.

Their list looks a little different — perhaps reflecting the cultural divide between the US and the UK.

For women, the most attractive jobs were:

  1. Hairdresser
  2. Nurse
  3. Lawyer
  4. Entrepreneur
  5. Teacher

Most attractive jobs for a man

For men, the most attractive jobs were:

  1. Chef
  2. Engineer
  3. Entrepreneur
  4. Marketing
  5. Artist

It seems, whether you are a man or a woman, using Tinder or Badoo, it is time to become an entrepreneur.

Oh, by the way, have I told you about the new company I’m starting up…

Most attractive professions on Tinder

And here is the full list of most attractive professions for women from Tinder:

  1. Physical Therapist
  2. Interior Designer
  3. Entrepreneur
  4. PR
  5. Teacher
  6. College Student
  7. Speech Language Pathologist
  8. Pharmacist
  9. Social Media Manager
  10. Model
  11. Dental Hygienist
  12. Nurse
  13. Flight Attendant
  14. Personal Trainer
  15. Real Estate Agent

The same list for men:

  1. Pilot
  2. Entrepreneur
  3. Firefighter
  4. Doctor
  5. TV/Radio Personality
  6. Teacher
  7. Engineer
  8. Model
  9. Paramedic
  10. College Student
  11. Lawyer
  12. Personal Trainer
  13. Financial Advisor
  14. Police Officer
  15. Military

The data was sourced from Tinder and Badoo.

Black Hair Is Attractive On A Woman, Research Finds

Long black hair was rated as more attractive than medium-length black hair in the study.

Long black hair was rated as more attractive than medium-length black hair in the study.

While black hair is attractive on a woman, lighter and longer hair makes women look more attractive in some circumstances, research finds.

Having lighter hair was most strongly linked to higher ratings for attractiveness, youth and health.

However, there were some kinks in the findings.

For example, having medium-length blonde hair was rated more attractive than long blonde hair.

Long black hair, though, was rated as more attractive than medium-length black hair.

The study’s authors describe their results:

“…we found that lighter hair (blond and brown) compared to darker hair (black) is generally associated with perceptions of youth, health and attractiveness, and generally leads to more positive perceptions of relationship and parenting potential.”

Black hair compared to brown and blond

For the study, 110 men looked at images of women with different coloured hair and of different lengths.

The hair colours were blond, brown and black and the lengths short, medium and long.

They were asked about the women’s relationship potential, age, health and parenting capability.

Longer hair, though, was linked to lower perceptions of parenting ability.

The study’s authors view their findings as supporting evolutionary theories:

“Hair that is healthy and strong signifies overall physical
health, which in turn can signify one’s capability of conceiving and carrying a child.

[…]

Because hair tends to be thicker, healthier, and grow more quickly in younger women (ages 16-24) than older women, one would expect that younger women would wear their hair longer than older women to provide a more perceptible and powerful signal to reproductive potential.”

Hair gets darker with age

Similarly, from an evolutionary perspective, blonde hair signals youth as people’s hair gets darker with age, until it starts to turn white.

Other studies suggest, though, that blonde hair only has a rejuvenating effect when women are under 40.

There is also evidence that preferences for blonde or darker hair depend on how prevalent that hair colour is in the area.

Men seem to prefer blonde hair more in areas where it is already more naturally prevalent.

The study was published in The Journal of Social Psychology (Matz & Hinsz, 2017).