Erik Gahner Larsen

25 interesting facts #11

251. Democratization is associated with more deforestation (Sanford 2021)

252. Since the 1950s, there has been a moral aversion to using water as a weapon in armed conflicts (Grech-Madin 2021)

253. People with disagreeable personalities do not have an advantage in pursuing power at work (Anderson et al. 2020)

254. Overconfidence in news judgments is associated with false news susceptibility (Lyons et al. 2021)

255. The correlation between social media use and negative outcomes (such as loneliness) is small (Appel et al. 2020)

256. Brexit increased consumer prices by 2.9 percent, costing the average household £870 per year (Breinlich et al. 2021)

257. Users contribute to Stack Overflow as a way to improve future employment prospects (Xu et al. 2020)

258. People with low self-esteem and a weaker sense of control over their fates are more likely to blame the political system for the challenges they face in their lives (Baird and Wolak 2021)

259. Between the fifth and ninth centuries CE, Korea and Japan peacefully developed state institutions through emulation and learning from China (Huang and Kang 2021)

260. The proportion of employees describing their jobs as useless is low and declining (Soffia et al. 2021)

261. People are more likely to attribute moral standing to beautiful animals (Klebl et al. 2021)

262. Wolves make roadways safer because they reduce deer–vehicle collisions (Raynor et al. 2021)

263. Marijuana use is not a reliable gateway cause of illicit drug use (Jorgensen and Wells 2021)

264. Push polls increase false memories for fake news stories (Murphy et al. 2021)

265. World Bank project aid targets richer parts of countries (Briggs 2021)

266. Most people, if given the opportunity, would not want to know about upcoming negative events (Gigerenzer and Garcia-Retamero 2017)

267. There is substantial evidence on the negative impact of climate change on the planet (Hausfather et al. 2020, Im et al. 2017, Kulp and Strauss 2019, Mora et al. 2017)

268. The George Floyd protests decreased favorability toward the police (Reny and Newman 2021)

269. In Venezuela, the economic consequences of the Chavez administration were bleak (Grier and Maynard 2016)

270. Since the 1980s, the global twinning rate has increased by a third (Monden et al. 2021)

271. Some people are attracted sexually to intelligence (Gignac et al. 2018)

272. Luxury consumption can be a profitable social strategy (Nelissen and Meijers 2011)

273. Our daily mobility is characterized by a deep-rooted regularity (Song et al. 2010)

274. Men and women candidates are similarly persistent after losing elections (Bernhard and de Benedictis-Kessner 2021)

275. Public attitudes toward immigration in Europe become more negative closer to elections (Dekeyser and Freedman 2021)

Previous posts: #10 #9 #8 #7 #6 #5 #4 #3 #2 #1

25 interesting facts #6

126. Climate change may have been an important factor in the outbreak of COVID-19 (Beyer et al. 2021)

127. On average, people underestimate how much their conversation partners enjoy their company (Boothby et al. 2018)

128. There are at least 137 design mistakes you can make in your PowerPoint presentations (Kosslyn et al. 2012)

129. Voting rights do not affect the political maturity of adolescents (Bergh 2013)

130. People consume more when the cost is split, resulting in a substantial loss of efficiency (Gneezy et al. 2004)

131. In Congo, increased tax enforcement substantially raised political participation and trust in city government (Weigel 2020)

132. Boredom leads to endorsement of more extreme political orientations (Van Tilburg and Igou 2016)

133. People tend to pursue urgency over importance when faced with choices between tasks (Zhu et al. 2018).

134. Radical right parties benefits more from malicious social media bots than other party families (Silva and Proksch 2020)

135. Lay estimates of genetic influence match heritability estimates from twin studies (Harden 2021)

136. In soccer, because of spectators, referees favour home teams when awarding yellow and red cards (Dawson and Dobson 2010; Pettersson-Lidbom and Priks 2010)

137. Authoritarian regimes that emerge out of violent social revolution have a greater longevity (Lachapelle et al. 2020)

138. Individuals with Dark Triad traits (Machiavellianism, Narcissism, Psychopathy) more frequently signal virtuous victimhood (Qian et al. 2020)

139. The Dunning-Kruger effect is (mostly) a statistical artefact (Gignac and Zajenkowski 2020)

140. The social cost of carbon is estimated to be US$417 per tCO2 (Ricke et al. 2018)

141. Declines in biodiversity have resulted in declines in human quality of life (Brauman et al. 2020)

142. Personal experiences with the weather and extreme weather events matter for climate opinions and perceptions (Choi et al. 2020, Damsbo-Svendsen 2020, Egan & Mulling 2012, Hazlett & Mildenberger 2020, McDonald et al. 2015, Motta 2020, Rudman et al. 2013, Sisco & Weber 2020 and Whitmarsh 2008)

143. Homo sapiens evolved via selection for prosociality (Hare 2017)

144. Households with solar installations are more politically active than their neighbours (Mildenberger et al. 2019)

145. People underestimate greenhouse gas emissions associated with air travel (Wynes et al. 2020)

146. Unemployment has no effect on the Big Five personality traits (Gnambs and Stiglbauer 2019)

147. Human-made mass exceeds all global living biomass on Earth (Elhacham et al. 2020)

148. Pictures by politicians in non-political settings increase audience engagement on Instagram (Peng 2020)

149. Intelligence predicts humour production ability (Greengross and Miller 2011)

150. Parents who have twins in their first parity are less likely to vote (Dahlgaard and Hansen 2020)

Previous posts: #5, #4, #3, #2, #1

25 interesting facts #5

101. Claude Monet’s late works were the result of cataracts and not conscious experimentation with a more expressionistic style (Gruener 2015)

102. There are about ~40,000 virus species in mammals, including ~10,000 viruses with zoonotic potential (Carlson et al. 2019)

103. People mispredict the time course of their own creativity (Lucas and Nordgren 2020)

104. Attractive individuals are more likely to identify as conservative (Peterson and Palmer 2017)

105. Political leaders who experienced economic hardship in their youth increase social welfare spending when in power (Han and Han 2020)

106. Digital technology explains less than 0.4% of the variation in well-being among adolescents (Orben and Przybylski 2019)

107. Exposure to elite discourse about fake news leads to less accurate identification of real news (Van Duyn and Collier 2019)

108. The arrival of children creates a long-run gender gap in earnings (Kleven et al. 2019)

109. Proximity to fast food has significant deleterious effects on children’s weight outcomes (Han et al. 2020)

110. Conservatives are more likely to express concern about climate change when framed as a national security issue (Motta et al. 2020)

111. Access to an uncensored internet does not induce people to acquire politically sensitive information (Chen and Yang 2019)

112. Voluntary environmental action induces positive reactions among citizens towards individual firms (Kolcava et al. 2020)

113. More films with US presidents are released during Democratic administrations than during Republican administrations (Uscinski 2009)

114. There is no effect of oxytocin on trusting behaviour (Declerck et al. 2020)

115. Lacking household sanitation is associated with women’s risk of non-partner sexual violence (Jadhav et al. 2016)

116. Voters evaluate female party leaders more positively than male party leaders (Bridgewater and Nagel 2020)

117. Bronze medalists tend to be happier than silver medalists (Husted et al. 1995; Hedgcock et al. 2020)

118. Blood alcohol concentration predicts utilitarian responses in moral dilemmas (Duke and Bègue 2015)

119. Adoption of copyrights within Italy increased the number and the quality of operas (Giorcelli and Moser 2020)

120. When consuming Coca Cola and Pepsi, people are influenced more by the label than the actual taste (Woolfolk et al. 1983)

121. In Spain, the more foreign players in the club winning, the more favourable the views of immigrants in the club’s region (Lago and Lago-Peñas 2020)

122. The presence of African American soldiers in the U.K. during World War II reduced anti-minority prejudice (Schindler and Westcott 2020)

123. In New York and London, individuals in high-income occupations are concentrating in the city centre (van Ham et al. 2020)

124. In speed dating, male selectivity is invariant to group size, while female selectivity is strongly increasing in group size (Fisman et al. 2006)

125. People who are unaware of the price do not derive more enjoyment from more expensive wine (Goldstein et al. 2008)

25 interesting facts #3

51. Concerns about travel time explain why some members of the European Parliament favour holding plenaries only in Brussels (Whitaker et al. 2017)

52. Prospect theory replicates across countries and languages (Ruggeri et al. 2020)

53. Anti-vaccine policy attitudes correlate with low levels of knowledge about the causes of autism (Motta et al. 2018)

54. Information on the choices of others contributes to inequality and unpredictability in cultural markets (Salganik et al. 2006)

55. In a Monty Hall Dilemma analogue, pigeons maximize their wins by switching on virtually all trials (Herbranson 2012)

56. The preregistration of clinical trials is associated with more null findings (Kaplan and Irvin 2015)

57. Later school start times are associated with more sleep and better performance (Dunster et al. 2018)

58. Cars detected in Google Street View images can be used to predict social outcomes (e.g. voting patterns in elections) (Gebru et al. 2017)

59. People tend to recall being more generous in the past than they actually are (Carlson et al. 2020)

60. Ants modify the structure of their social network (and make it less efficient) to decrease pathogen transmission (Stroeymeyt et al. 2018)

61. Using green products improves consumption experience (Tezer and Bodur 2020)

62. Signing a veracity statement at the beginning instead of at the end of a tax form does not increase honest reporting (Kristal et al. 2020)

63. There is no liberal media bias in which news stories political journalists choose to cover (Hassell et al. 2020)

64. The overlap between different common depression scales is depressingly low (Fried 2017)

65. Saint’s day fiestas in Mexico occurring near an election decrease turnout (Atkinson and Fowler 2014)

66. While the optimal strategy for soccer goalkeepers is to stay in the goal’s center during penalty kicks, they tend to jump right or left (Bar-Eli et al. 2007)

67. Violent video game engagement is not associated with adolescents’ aggressive behaviour (Przybylski and Weinstein 2019)

68. There is an association between providing data link statements in articles and the expected number of citations (Colavizza et al. 2020)

69. The 2004 French headscarf ban reduced the secondary educational attainment of Muslim girls (Abdelgadir and Fouka 2020)

70. The 9/11 attacks led to an increase in the vacancy rates of the most distinctive Chicago landmark buildings (Abadie and Dermisi 2008)

71. Newspapers preferentially cover medical research with weaker methodology (Selvaraj et al. 2014)

72. Only children are not more narcissistic than individuals with siblings (Foster et al. 2020)

73. When people invest in stocks they get more right-leaning outlooks on issues such as merit and deservingness, personal responsibility, and equality (Margalit and Shayo 2020)

74. Conservatives report, but liberals display, greater happiness (Wojcik et al. 2015)

75. Politicians use different flag emojis in line with their political ideology (Kariryaa et al. 2020)