Personality & Behaviour

Coca-Cola.  The soft drink.  Coke.  It just got a little harder. Now, make it a bit more difficult to open, because the lids of some bottles have been screwed on extra tight. The concept behind the ad for Coke in the Chinese market is relatively simple.  If you can’t open the Coke bottle with a tighter cap, you can ask someone for help. It seems harmless enough. The tight-capped bottles are a ploy.  Who knows, maybe it actually will help a little with matchmaking in China?  There are cultural differences after all between different countries. Although some, such as at Jezebel, have already been quite quick to label Coke’s IceBreaker ad as sexist.  Portraying women as weak and in need of a man with strong hands to help them open a bottle of Coca-Cola. Following such interpretations and logic, then maybe things will be placed on high shelves to help short people meet taller people.  Dumb ...

That is the Manly Question Based on male and female judgements of photographs of men who were clean-shaven, lightly or heavily stubbled and fully bearded, a recent study by Dixson and Brooks (2013) about men’s facial hair and their perceived socio-sexual attributes of attractiveness, health, masculinity and parenting abilities was conducted. It found that both male and females rated heavy stubble as the most attractive; whereas a full beard was rated highest in perceptions of parenting ability and healthiness, again by both males and females. So there you have it. Men, grow at least some heavy stubble, or invest in a beard.  You’ll be seen as more attractive and masculine.  (It may not actually make you more manly though, just people’s perceptions of this.)  Then you’ve maybe got a chance with Mila Kunis, who was named by FHM the World’s Sexiest Woman in 2013. Is it Really that Simple? In psychological ...

The Swiss artist Milo Moiré as part of a project called “The Script System” had a naked model catch public transport in peak hour in Dusseldorf, Germany.  The model had words of clothing items written in English on her otherwise naked body.  (Although she did wear shoes, glasses, and carried a handbag.  Either the bare essentials or the perfect accessories to go with a birthday suit.)  Of course all of this was filmed (the full video in all its glory can be watched on Milo’s website). It was supposed to be a way of “shaking up the ordinary,” said Moiré. Despite all of this, no such thing happened.  Commuters generally ignored the model, or maybe at best gave a momentary and awkward pause.  Whilst the words written on the model’s body and having people filming her likely suggested it was a performance piece of some sort (and arguably people can get away ...

420 and the Culture of Marijuana The 20th April is a meaningful date to many. Of course given the history of the world, it won’t take much to pull out something apparently significant, purely by chance, and link it to such a date.  For example, Adolf Hitler was born on 20th April, 1889.  Delving into confirmation biases and relatively prime numbers for mistaken numerology, is a topic for another time. Rather the 20th April here, will first be morphed into April 20, then converted into 420, and maybe 4/20 if need be.  And yes, guilty of using numerology as charged.  Although the whole idea of the 420 here is linked to not being charged. At 4:20pm on 4/20, stoners across North America, meaning the US and Canada, lit up their joints to advocate for the legalisation of marijuana.  Presumably with smoking this weed, some did actually inhale as well. The origins of 420 are ...