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Week in Ideas: Daniel Akst

The Myopia of Misery

Sadness makes people more shortsighted when it comes to money, a paper reports.

Researchers showed subjects short films known to instill sadness, disgust or neutral feelings. Then the participants were asked to choose between getting money right away or getting a larger sum months later.

People typically discount future rewards heavily. But in this case, those who were shown the sad film discounted the future much more than others. One example: People shown the "neutral" film required $56 to forgo $85 three months later, but people shown the sad movie required only $37.

The findings are consistent with prior research showing that positive feelings increase patience, the authors said, and imply that grief or similar feelings could impair financial decision-making.

"The Financial Costs of Sadness," Jennifer Lerner, Ye Li, Elke Weber, Psychological Science (November)

Astray? Not With a Spray

Help may be on the way for the cheated-upon.

Oliver Munday

Men in committed relationships who were given a spritz of oxytocin stayed farther away—at least by a few inches—from an attractive female than did similar men given a placebo.

The substance, a hormone produced by the brain, plays a role in building bonds in couples and between parents and children. Oxytocin also facilitates trust and, evidently, fidelity. In the study, committed men given oxytocin also approached photos of attractive women more slowly. But the substance had no effect on single men.


"Oxytocin Modulates Social Distance Between Males and Females," Dirk Scheele, Nadine Striepens, Onur Güntürkün, Sandra Deutschländer, Wolfgang Maier, Keith M. Kendrick, and René Hurlemann, Journal of Neuroscience (Nov. 14)

Consumer Spending
The Dirty-Money Problem

Leaving the credit cards home is a time-tested way to curb spending. Now a pair of marketing professors may have found another way to do the trick: carrying crisp new bills and shopping alone.

Oliver Munday

The study found that people spent less when given cash in fresh bills compared with worn ones. When gambling for the prize of a new bill, people were far more willing to risk dirty old bills than clean new ones. There was an exception to the pattern, though: When others were watching, test subjects were more likely to spend new bills than old ones. "People want to rid themselves of worn bills because they are disgusted by the contamination from others," the authors write, "whereas people put a premium on crisp currency because they take pride in owning bills that can be spent around others."

"Money Isn't Everything, but It Helps If It Doesn't Look Used: How the Physical Appearance of Money Influences Spending," Fabrizio Di Muro and Theodore Noseworthy, Journal of Consumer Research (October)

Plastic Skin, Heal Thyself

Artificial skin, which is used to help burn victims (among other purposes), has come a long way, but it still falls short of the real thing, particularly when it comes to repairing itself.

This schematic drawing shows the long molecular chains (red and blue) and tiny nickel particles (silver discs) making up the plastic skin. ENLARGE
This schematic drawing shows the long molecular chains (red and blue) and tiny nickel particles (silver discs) making up the plastic skin. Stanford School of Engineering

Now researchers at Stanford University have developed a plastic skin that can conduct electrical signals, much the way real skin signals the brain, and heals itself, when damaged, faster than real skin. The plastic is made of long chains of molecules joined by hydrogen bonds that break apart easily but also reconnect easily. Pressed together for a few seconds, the stuff regains its conductivity and strength in about a half-hour.

The new material, which the scientists are calling the first of its kind, is described in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

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