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POPSMarried Women Hate Sex Also, according to our survey: • 23% of the women who have sex do it because they love their husbands and want to make him happy. • 49% of the women have sex because they want it. • 26% of the women surveyed say their sex lives took a turn for the worst after they had children. Even momogic contributor and sex therapist Dr. Shannon Fox was surprised by the results of our survey. "It is sad to see that half of the women polled described their sex lives as depressing, embarrassing or a hassle. That is a lot of unhappy women! That means that even the women who are having sex more often aren't happy with the quality of the sex they are having."
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POPSStatistics and the Dancing Cockatoo "On each trial he actually dances at a range of tempos," says Patel. But in each case the slower end of Snowball's range seemed to correlate with the tempo of the music. "When the music tempo was slow, his tempo range included slow dancing. When the music was fast, his tempo range didn’t include these slower tempos," Patel explains. A statistical check on these variations showed that the correlation between the music’s rhythm and Snowball’s slower movements was very unlikely to have happened by chance. "To us, this shows that he really does have tempo sensitivity, and is not just ‘doing his own thing’ at some preferred tempo," says Patel. Via Andrew Sullivan
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POPSUnemployed, and Skewing the Picture ...you can be sure of one thing: Politicians will be quick to point out that joblessness remains low by historical standards. “Five percent is still a low unemployment rate,” Ed Lazear, the chairman of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, said recently. “It’s below the average for the last three decades.” The president and Senator John McCain also recently noted that unemployment remained low. Senators Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and Johnny Isakson of Georgia, both Republicans, have said the economy continues to be at “full employment.” Two Democratic governors, Christine Gregoire of Washington and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, have bragged that their states recently recorded their lowest unemployment rates in history. Statistically, all this is true enough. But it’s also deeply misleading.
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POPS Does Birth Order Matter? I am the last born in my family and I must say the order is reversed here. Not to say I am an uber-citizen of the Major Ganglion Club. But the IQ numbers in my brood were destined to rise from the start.
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POPSWhen to have a child, if ever: The impact in later life
The results of this research: "Early mothers were the least satisfied and most depressed of all four groups, while delayed or late mothers were the most satisfied with their lives and the happiest." "All other things being equal, the childless women were about as satisfied and happy with their lives as the on-time mothers." "In mid-life, being married or having a partner has a greater impact on a woman's well-being than whether or not she has children" This study suggests that childless women are just as likely to experience psychological well-being later in life as women who have children when they are between 19 and 24, and end up happier than women who have children before age 19, so having children is no guarantee of greater happiness in your old age. Motherhood isn't likely to make you happier later in life unless you delay having children until age 25 or after. It also points to our need for loving relationships as we age in order to feel happy.
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POPSRising Support for Government intervention to help poor I am guessing for the top panel, the differences between 2007, on the one hand, and 1994 & 1997, on the other, are statistically significant. For the second panel, I assume the differences between 2007, OTOH, and 2002, 1999, 1997, and 1994, OTO, are statistically significant. Via Ezra Klein
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POPSVerizon Doesn't Know Difference Between Dollars and Cents This is a recording of a man who was quoted a rate of .002 cents per kilobyte for voice & data transfer on his cell phone. It turns out the actual rate is .002 DOLLARS. He calls Verizon intending to get his bill corrected (after all, Verizon provided the wrong quote) but he spends 20 minutes trying to explain the difference between .002 CENTS and .002 DOLLARS to TWO customer service reps. This one of the funniest and most aggravating things I have heard.
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POPSThe perils of polling - The Asian Disease problem Now a second group was given the same cover story, but the following options (Tversky and Kahneman 1981: 453): 1. If Program C is adopted 400 people will die. 2. If Program D is adopted there is 1/3 probability that nobody will die, and 2/3 probability that 600 people will die. Which of the two programs would you favour? The crucial point in this experiment is that both combinations have exactly the same utility distribution. Only the verbalisation differs. But now the participants do not choose programme C, which is analogous to the formerly preferred programme A; the majority (78 per cent) choose programme D, whose corresponding option was rejected in the problem’s first presentation. For those who think that surveys elicit thoughtful responses from people.
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POPSDo anti-drug ads cause teenage drug use? Probably not, but they sure as hell don't reduce it either. Note how the y-axis of the right chart is blown up so the decline in teen drug use looks to be of the same magnitude of the decline in the drug czar ad budget. But the decline in teen drug use is pretty modest, from 19.4 % to 14.9%. Via Mobius at JewSchool
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POPSInsults: Physical Harm Maybe this is why so few people participate on the web and why that such a relatively large percent that do insult and attack other participants. It is a stress reaction that kicks up a fight-or-flight response. I try to remember most of those doing the insulting are expressing their own background of verbal abuse and fear. Try to let it slide off your back like water on a duck. That's good karma.
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POPSZodiac linked to driving ability -- Toronto study This Aquarian has a near-perfect record over 34 years of legal driving (and a couple more years before those ones). Maybe it has to do with not relaxing my safety standards over the years, or good initial instruction. Interesting correlation, in any case!
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POPSKids with high IQs grow up to be vegetarians "Vegetarians were more likely to be female, of higher social class and better educated, but IQ was still a significant predictor of being vegetarian after adjustment for these factors, Gale said. "Vegetarian diets are associated with lower cardiovascular disease risk in a number of studies, so these findings suggest that a such a diet may help to explain why children or adolescents with a higher IQ have a lower risk of coronary heart disease as adults," Gale said." Not everyone agrees, of course. But it makes a lot of sense to me.
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