Pet owners trust pets more than people

Anyone who's had a pet will wonder why this is reported as a news item:

Canadian pet owners would rather deal with their furry friends than other people, according to a recent study by Harris/Decima.

The study revealed 53 per cent of Canadians who own pets find them more reliable than people. Ninety per cent of Canadians talk to their pets and one-third have confided their deepest, darkest secrets to Fido or Milo or Hero.

There are several obvious reasons for this, such as: pets don't lie to you; they aren't mean to you; they're glad to see you; and best of all, they don't talk back.

Science confirms what Jackie Gleason knew more than 50 years ago

Musical choices affect chances with women: study
Agence France-Presse June 19, 2010

French researchers have provided scientific backing to would-be seducers who instinctively know they have to swap rap or heavy metal for Marvin Gaye to improve their odds...

...At the end of their conversation, the young male used a standard pickup line. What swayed his chances of success was the music that had been played in the waiting room, the researchers found. When a "neutral" song was played, only 28 per cent of women responded positively.

But when the romantic ballad was played, his success rate nearly doubled, to 52 per cent.

Jackie Gleason was more than 50 years ahead of science when he released an album of instrumental music titled Music to Change Her Mind. Any of The Great One's albums will do just as well; or you can try The Many Moods of Murry Wilson (1967), which is now available on CD.
For those who like romantic singing to help accomplish their purposes, I recommend Nat King Cole, Roy Hamilton, and Frank Sinatra. If you're really adventurous, you might want to try the album You're My Girl (1958), with Jack Webb talking his way through a dozen romantic ballads. For those of us without anyone, there's Roy Orbison (and Mr. Sinatra when he's in a melancholy mood).

Fathers in Tokyo work too many hours

As reported by Reuters:

Tokyo fathers spend less time playing with their children and pitching in with the housework than dads in other big Asian cities due to working such long hours, according to a Japanese survey.

Among Tokyo dads, only 37 percent spend at least two hours a day with their children on weekdays compared with 50 percent for fathers in Seoul and about three-quarters of Beijing and Shanghai dads, the survey by education services provider Benesse showed.

It also showed that fathers in Tokyo come home from work much later than their Asian counterparts, with about 40 percent getting in the door after 9 p.m. versus 29 percent in Seoul and a low 3 percent in the Chinese cities.

Teenage boys eat a lot

This study from the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development won't surprise anyone who's ever known or been a teenage boy. I just wish I still had the metabolism I had then.

As reported by Reuters, June 15, 2010:

NEW YORK - Parents of teenage boys often believe they are being eaten out of house and home. A new study suggests they’re right.

In a lunch-buffet experiment involving 200 kids ages 8 to 17, researchers found that boys routinely ate more compared with girls their own age. But boys in their mid-teens were the most ravenous of all — downing an average of nearly 2,000 lunchtime calories.

The pattern makes sense, given that boys usually hit their growth spurt — putting on height and muscle mass — in late puberty, according to senior researcher Dr. Jack A. Yanovski, of the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Yet, while teenage boys have a storied reputation for packing it away, there had actually been little objective evidence that this is the norm.

“There’s a lot of folk wisdom that says boys can eat prodigious amounts, but we haven’t had much data,” Yanovski told Reuters Health.

To fill the gap, he and his colleagues had 204 8- to 17-year-old boys and girls come to a lunch buffet on two separate days. On one day, the kids were instructed to eat as much as they normally would during lunch; on the other day, they were told to eat as much as they wanted.

Overall, the researchers found, boys ate more than girls did at each stage of puberty. Prepubescent boys — generally between the ages of 8 and 10 — averaged nearly 1,300 lunchtime calories, versus 900 among prepubescent girls.

Girls showed the biggest increase in appetite during early- to mid-puberty, roughly between the ages of 10 and 13. Girls that age averaged almost 1,300 lunchtime calories, and that figure was only slightly higher among girls who were in late puberty.

That pattern is in line with girls’ development, Yanovski said, as they tend to have their most significant growth spurts in early- to mid-puberty.

Boys, on the other hand, tend to develop later. And their calorie needs appear to shoot up significantly in late puberty, or between the ages of 14 and 17.

While boys in this study showed little change in calorie intake between pre- and mid-puberty, their average lunchtime calorie intake reached nearly 2,000 calories in late puberty. Even for active children, those 2,000 calories would be most of their daily energy needs.

“They really can eat,” Yanovski noted.

For parents, he said, the findings offer an idea of what they can reasonably expect as far as their children’s calorie needs, and the family grocery bills, as kids get older.

Many Americans believe that God guides their daily lives

Only in Trudeaupian academia (and in Canwest newspapers) would this be considered newsworthy:

...a new Canadian study sheds light on why: the vast majority of Americans believe God is directly concerned with their personal affairs, with most assuming a divine reason for everything from job promotions to speeding tickets.
"In American culture — much less so in Canada — there's a really constant flow of God-talk that references these small, personal interactions. It's almost like a self-absorbed view of divine will," says study author Scott Schieman, a professor of sociology at the University of Toronto.
"The extent that it's so visible, almost saturating the culture at times, makes me think it's not just metaphor or symbolism; many, many people believe these processes are real."
Eight in 10 Americans say they depend on God for decision-making guidance. Seven in 10 believe that when good or bad things happen, the occurrences are part of God's plan. And six in 10 believe God has set the course of their lives.

Go here to see Professor Schieman's original article.

Female social scientists make astonishing discoveries about ogling

Female social scientists, having apparently never been ogled themselves, have difficulty understanding the behaviour in others. The women who never get ogled (such as the feminists mentioned in this article) are the ones who complain the most about being "objectified." The UWO professor is at the perfect campus to conduct such a study; I went to that university, and I found the women very oglable. Their taste in men, however, should be a subject for another study.

In experiments with more than 200 people, researchers discovered that when a female believes her body is being sized up by a male, she'll diminish her presence by speaking less. When a male believes a female is eyeing his physique, however, no such effect occurs.

The study, published this month in the journal Psychological Science, explains that our culture has so taught women that they're judged on appearance that they've come to evaluate themselves that way, ultimately self-objectifying.

Only a woman who has never attracted the interest of any men could come up with this howler (I laughed so hard when I read this, I almost needed medical attention):

Veronica I. Arreola, assistant director of the University of Chicago's Center for Research on Women and Gender, hopes this helps "dispel the myth that ogling women or staring at their chests should be seen as a compliment."

"Yes, we want to look nice and yes, we like to hear that we looked nice today," says Arreola. "But we also want to communicate our thoughts and ideas without wondering if someone is staring down our shirt."

That depends, of course, on whether there’s anything down the shirt worth looking at (or imagining). I have news for Ms. Arreola: Men are interested in what's inside the shirt, they're not interested in women's thoughts and ideas, and all the feminist indoctrination in the world isn't going to change that.

Meanwhile, this observation is positively Sherlockian:

"I'm often struck watching perfectly reasonable and attractive women hiding behind towels at the beach while men of all ages and sizes stroll up and down the beach smiling and looking happy in their skin," says Brennan, who studies gender equality.

"We don't teach men that they'll be judged on how their bodies look, and certainly there's much less emphasis on appearance in male socialization."

Another article on the same topic can be found here.

Big fat slobs don't get jobs...

...except maybe as "Before" models in weight-loss ads. This survey was done by a weight-loss organization in Britain; I suspect the results might be less dramatic in the U.S.A. and Canada, where the number of fat people has ballooned in recent years. Perhaps it might be a good idea to get the promotion first, then earn the "BFS" degree.

Overweight face a ‘catalogue of discrimination" in the workplace, shows survey

Overweight people are missing out on jobs because employers assume they are ‘lazy’, ‘lack self control’ and are ‘not hard workers’, according to a survey by Slimming World and YouGov.

When people who are very overweight do get a job they are twice as likely to earn a low salary, four times more likely to suffer bullying about their weight and six times more likely to feel their appearance has caused them to be overlooked for promotion, the survey of 2,000 people revealed.

In addition, while one in three people who are obese admit they feel like ‘second class citizens’, data from the survey’s 227 bosses shows that they’re right to fear discrimination – particularly from male employers. One in four male bosses say they would turn down a potential candidate based purely on their weight and one in 10 admit they have already done so.

Many people hated physical education class (and still do)

This doesn’t come as a surprise to those of us (including this blogger) who were usually the last ones picked to play on teams during Phys Ed class. It doesn’t sound as though much has changed in the teaching of Phys Ed since George Leonard’s article Why Johnny Can’t Run ( a chapter adapted from his book The Ultimate Athlete) appeared in the August 1975 issue of The Atlantic Monthly (pp. 55-60). I quit taking Phys Ed after Grade 10 in the first half of 1976, but my last Phys Ed teacher, Rick Capyk, was the best I had in that subject, because he had some sympathy for the non-jocks among us. He came up with the idea of intramural leagues in various sports where we could pick our own teams, with one level of play for the jocks, and another level for the rest of us (my junior high math teacher, Mr. Farrelly, had done a similar thing for some of us a couple of years earlier). I started a flag football team, and we had a lot of fun. I have no idea if such intramural leagues still exist, but the idea is still worth trying.

Gym class makes grown-ups shun sports

Bad memories of phys-ed linked to inactive lifestyles

By Elise Stolte, edmontonjournal.com
January 7, 2010

EDMONTON — The reason many adults don't play sports may be related to the humiliation they faced as kids in gym class, when they couldn't climb a rope with everyone watching.

That might seem obvious, but University of Alberta researcher Billy Strean said he was shocked by the painful, visceral reactions he got when he interviewed people about their gym teachers even 40 years later.

When a man's brain is turned on, so is another part of him

Why is it that the social scientists who are researching other people’s sexuality don’t seem to have any themselves?

Sexual response in women more subtle than men: Study
By Linda Nguyen, Canwest News Service
January 5, 2010

The old joke goes that a man's brain is located in his pants, and according to an international study published this week, the adage may in fact be partly true.

The study, which appeared in the Archives of Sexual Behavior journal, examined more than 40 years of international sex research and found that in many cases, when a man's mind was sexually aroused, it was likely his genitals were too. But in women, sexual responses were much more complicated.

For the original article in academicese as opposed to English, go here.