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description=4 posts published by Richard Kunert during October 2012;

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the, to, and, of, is, in, this, for, it, that, music, weather, be, by, on, not, people, or, loud, as, are, effect, rain, if, more, you, they, with, but, can, mood, too, out, have, what, found, should, adhd, different, could, was, at, an, were, research, like, advantage, may, republican, when, one, so, than, their, good, from, sun, government, has, just, why, election, through, about, our, other, whether, colleagues, only, vote, post, reason, going, no, which, there, such, even, diagnosis, however, researchers, also, your, we, don, helping, hearing, american, obama, pray, effects, romney, because, will, candidates, day, his, some, loudness, looked, parties, given, likely, much, hand, between, behaviour, evidence, studies, rock, concerts, touch, someone, most, how, would, next, us, he, baumgartner, dangerous, danger, say, without, still, right, left, system, does, benefit, due, help, its, east, life, idea, approval, appeal, role, recent, conservative, last, second, presidential, well, surprised, being, higher, felix, many, age, group, obvious, activity, beyond, listen, seeking, intimacy, perhaps, been, culture, psychological, significantly, better, explanation, coincidence, polling, sunshine, incumbent, actually, called, worth, political, focus, study, key, first, information, tend, feeling, something, though, entirely, leave, all, rational, story, voters, voter, bus, really, voting, needed, health, responsibility, clearly, causal, then, concert, quiet, example, go, energy, fun, part, person, these, sense, saccule, common, felt, prevalence, rates, differ, european, north, middle, criteria, inclusion, while, result, brain, 2012, psycho, meteorological, mysterious, around, cultures, read, follow, me, improves, chances, elected, covered, my, turn, turns, perceived, mitt, faced, pouring, supports, underlying, strategy, do, above, very, engage, things, skydiving, ordinary, every, surely, cause, carried, nonetheless, millions, listening, illness, true, disorders, treatment, view, disorder, got, curious, ratings, cohen, bush, year, compared, simple, german, michael, analysis, data, 2008, increase, satisfaction, rainy, germany, two, centre, cannot, account, completely, democratic, must, time, media, stronger, depending, worrying, link, directly, once, judgement, congruent, attention, memory, third, decisions, gut, evaluate, assessment, actual, indiffirent, please, comment, somehow, outcome, dry, favour, usual, shown, various, days, liberal, seems, bad, cost, car, typical, wait, get, work, support, whereas, full, influenced, rather, model, outcomes, think, difference, wing, where, rights, care, over, changing, another, associated, review, chain, look, readiness, hear, ready, answer, predicted, them, explaining, adopt, show, scientific, half, classical, musicians, limited, experience, problems, daredevil, band, melody, offer, night, want, showed, piece, happens, headphones, office, low, todd, cody, university, puzzle, tones, structure, ear, head, muscles, react, deaf, range, level, same, thought, mystery, environments, plugs, ears, become, together, instead, taste, intimate, sees, offers, quite, psychiatric, polanczyk, geographic, expect, social, published, world, eastern, kids, counterparts, sampled, adults, asian, mainly, interested, consequences, drug, abuse, month, october, gop, share, globe, ideas, brainy, who, minds, menu, posts, twitter, categories, archives, via, email, site, views, getting, having, monitor, influences, exploited, forecast, november, 6th, date, candidate, know, upon, leaving, ballot, box, opinion, reasons, give, campaign, undo, rationality, irrationality, 39km, planet, earth, made, step, off, platform, doubt, wouldn, am, talking, mean, kind, dangers, hardly, avoided, road, traffic, leading, death, others, non, equivalent, practical, value, easily, worldwide, sitting, wherever, organic, diseases, cultural, background, play, tremendous, progression, mental, see, david, dobbs, wired, neglected, appreciation, affects, consequence, change, alex, 2005, respondent, location, ambiguous, note, opposite, suggesting, needs, explain, easiest, mutz, sylvia, kämpfer, did, similar, gathered, reduced, noted, ruled, grand, coalition, formed, main, therefore, either, replication, dwell, issue, yes, sort, usually, substantial, gender, appeared, comparable, education, season, unemployment, income, words, female, pensioner, looking, mirror, degree, suggested, large, increasing, availability, neurotransmitter, serotonin, indirectly, facilitating, outdoor, events, friends, matter, changed, three, ways, cloud, take, tends, conform, agrees, remembered, complex, vague, unimportant, guided, use, explicit, sum, asked, shining, attend, remember, clouded, wonder, responsible, application, appears, climate, hope, feelings, lead, challenger, love, covering, under, assumption, matters, brad, gomez, indeed, notion, elections, since, 1948, tended, snow, 1960, helped, kennedy, win, moreover, 2000, affected, infamous, florida, counties, spurious, recently, replicated, electoral, netherlands, rob, eisinga, real, bizarre, goes, bit, increases, effort, reluctance, booth, considerations, affect, politically, committed, used, working, outdoors, farming, chance, owning, imagined, urban, possibly, old, thus, unwilling, order, station, behaving, actors, consider, inch, normal, reduces, changes, abstention, terms, decision, actor, fails, sophisticated, theory, relation, stretch, persistent, captured, each, own, vs, dichotomy, comes, civil, tax, individual, opportunity, collective, protection, related, suggestive, proposal, matthew, keller, positively, experiencing, least, spring, established, carlson, linking, trust, chains, direct, test, affecting, cunningham, provided, participate, lengthy, questionnaire, approached, outside, stop, experimenter, request, sunny, stopped, questions, randomly, chosen, members, public, during, provide, concrete, influence, treat, citizens, alone, assist, administration, counter, act, following, suggest, emphasize, minority, women, states, military, successes, bin, laden, raid, pakistan, focussed, catch, up, polls, within, few, weeks, exaggeration, avoid, make, mistake, consensus, lays, round, exposed, professionally, loss, impairments, pop, bar, tenders, professionals, majority, attendees, temporary, auditory, tinnitus, hard, characters, la, flock, toddlers, prefer, fast, slow, clearest, paradoxical, discernible, rhythm, harmony, pure, successful, yourself, attraction, clues, understanding, subject, themselves, clubs, place, excitement, exactly, australian, team, led, roger, dean, arousal, noise, followed, profile, sweet, energetic, seen, annoyed, colleague, desk, choice, permeating, dancing, pretty, anything, put, risk, neil, frederick, manchester, solution, activate, balance, nice, distinction, modalities, responds, movements, sounds, automatically, clicks, vestibularly, impaired, start, reacting, roll, threshold, 105, db, beat, club, typically, tonal, enjoyment, works, mechanism, pleasure, derived, baby, swings, roller, coasters, banging, generally, greatest, surrounding, strangest, thing, question, refrain, until, organisers, realise, overdid, decibel, levels, final, exemplified, done, russo, ryerson, successfully, distinguish, piano, cello, trombone, never, heard, backs, able, suggests, yet, again, involvement, modality, explains, vision, often, grouped, reveal, distant, smell, sensations, available, interacting, object, hears, fiancé, mind, imagine, tried, him, her, seek, trying, immerse, ourselves, incidentally, advertised, novelty, jump, break, sound, barrier, previously, knew, sounded, enough, report, attach, importance, immediacy, touching, need, skin, poor, substitute, sensitive, cease, distance, personal, body, solved, modern, psychology, explanations, perfectly, avoidable, harmful, pursued, soft, match, daredevils, deficit, hyperactivity, shows, exert, 2007, meta, markedly, regions, way, might, opposed, myth, construct, both, africa, state, diagnostic, organisation, strict, association, control, appear, bias, international, comparisons, severe, restrictions, apparent, severity, fare, worse, region, hodgkins, et, al, adolescents, potentially, long, disease, western, easten, perspective, transition, adulthood, partly, blame, finally, entails, differently, researched, asians, self, esteem, europeans, antisocial, measure, addiction, single, headline, grabbing, forever, associate, inattentive

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ct is substantial in germany it was found to be stronger than the effect of gender and appeared comparable to the effect of education in the us study it was depending on season stronger than the effect of age unemployment or income in other words if it is worth worrying about the female vote or the pensioner vote it is also worth looking at the weather effect obama during a time of high approval the reason given for this incumbent sun advantage mirror to some degree what i suggested to be the reason for the republican rain advantage the effect of weather on mood is the key link by and large sunshine improves mood whether it does so directly by increasing the availability of the neurotransmitter serotonin or indirectly by facilitating outdoor events with friends does not matter once the weather has changed your mood there are three ways it can cloud your judgement first the information we take in tends to conform to our mood mood congruent attention second the more a memory agrees with our mood the more likely it is to be remembered mood congruent memory third when faced with complex vague or unimportant decisions people tend to be guided by their gut feeling i e they use their mood as explicit information for their judgement in sum when you are asked to evaluate the government and the sun is shining you are more likely to attend to something good remember something good and have your assessment clouded by your good gut feeling no wonder you tend to evaluate the government as better even though it is not responsible for the weather however this effect has no obvious application for the candidates obama appears to benefit from the political climate as much as from the actual weather romney though will have to pray for rain or hope that the good feelings not just lead to a better assessment of the incumbent but also of the challenger cohen a 2011 the photosynthetic president converting sunshine into popularity the social science journal 48 2 295 304 doi 10 1016 j soscij 2010 11 007 mutz m kämpfer s 2011 und nun zum wetter beeinflusst die wetterlage die einschätzung von politischen und wirtschaftlichen sachverhalten zeitschrift für soziologie 40 4 208 226 if you liked this post you may also like its sister post romney should pray for rain psycho meteorological effects on gop vote share pictures 1 by white house photo by eric draper public domain via wikimedia commons 2 by pete souza for the official white house photostream p042409ps 0122 via wikimedia commons if you were not entirely indiffirent to this post please leave a comment claimtoken 50966850814e7 posted in cognitive science applications richard kunert and tagged election emotion emotion and memory germany government incumbent mood obama republicans romney weather on october 25 2012 by richard kunert 1 comment romney should pray for rain psycho meteorological effects on gop vote share i would not be surprised if mitt romney was going through the weather forecast for november 6 th the date of the next us presidential election as the republican candidate he will know that his chances of being elected are higher if people are faced with pouring rain upon leaving for the ballot box research supports this opinion but the underlying reasons could give the obama campaign a strategy to undo this republican rain advantage must have been raining outside good for him the media love covering election day weather under the assumption that it somehow matters for the political outcome is that true research by brad gomez and colleagues indeed supports this notion they looked at all us presidential elections since 1948 and found that republican candidates tended to benefit from rain and snow in 1960 this effect may have helped kennedy to win the election due to dry weather moreover in 2000 it may have affected the infamous florida vote in bush s favour due to higher than usual rain in many counties this effect is not spurious it has recently been replicated in a completely different electoral system the netherlands rob eisinga and colleagues have shown that various left parties benefit from dry election days and that various right or liberal parties benefit from pouring rain the conservative advantage on rainy days seems to be real the rationality in weather effects the usual reason given for this bizarre effect is a rational one the story goes a bit like this bad weather increases the cost i e effort or reluctance of going to the polling booth such cost considerations may not affect conservative voters that much because they are more politically committed more used to working outdoors farming or have got a higher chance of owning a car the typical left voter on the other hand could be imagined as being urban without car possibly old and thus unwilling to wait for the bus in the rain in order to get to the polling station does this story work is the republican rain advantage really due to people behaving like rational actors the data don t really support this story consider that every inch of rain above normal reduces the voter turn out by only 0 9 whereas it changes the election outcome by 2 5 simple democratic voter abstention cannot account for the full effect many voters must be influenced by the weather in terms of their actual voting decision rather than just whether to vote or not the irrationality in weather effects obama with help from above given that the rational actor model fails a more sophisticated psychological theory is needed the relation between mood and helping behaviour may be the key link between the weather and election outcomes i don t think it is a stretch to say that the most persistent difference between right and left wing parties is captured in a each for his own vs help where help is needed dichotomy whether it comes to civil rights health care or the tax system right wing parties tend to favour individual responsibility and opportunity over collective responsibility and protection the effect of the weather on voting decisions may be related to changing a feeling of responsibility for one another there is some suggestive evidence for this proposal psychological studies carried out by matthew keller and colleagues have shown that mood is positively influenced by going out and experiencing good weather at least in the spring next good mood is associated with more helping behaviour clearly established in a review by carlson and colleagues so a causal chain linking the weather to voting could look like this weather mood helping one should not trust such causal chains too much without a direct test of the first cause affecting the last effect michael cunningham has provided just that he looked at helping behaviour through people s readiness to participate in a lengthy questionnaire people approached outside were more likely to stop to hear the experimenter s request on a sunny day once stopped they were ready to answer more questions if the sun was out clearly randomly chosen members of the public are more ready to help during good weather as predicted by the causal chain weather mood helping by changing voters readiness to provide concrete help the weather may also influence how people think the government should treat its citizens whether to leave them alone or whether to assist them what can obama do given the role of the mood helping effect in explaining the weather vote effect what strategy should the obama administration adopt to counter act the republican rain advantage following this model i suggest that they should emphasize health care and minority women rights if key states are predicted to show good weather military successes like the bin laden raid in pakistan should be focussed on with bad weather mitt romney on the other hand should catch up in the polls within the next few weeks and then pray for rain carlson m charlin v miller n 1988 positive mood and helping behavior a test of six hypotheses journal of personality and social psychology 55 2 211 29 pmid 3050025 cunningham m 1979 weather mood and helping behavior quasi experiments with the sunshine samaritan journal of personality and social psychology 37 11 1947 1956 doi 10 1037 0022 3514 37 11 1947 keller mc fredrickson bl ybarra o côté s johnson k mikels j conway a wager t 2005 a warm heart and a clear head the contingent effects of weather on mood and cognition psychological science 16 9 724 31 pmid 16137259 eisinga r te grotenhuis m pelzer b 2012 weather conditions and political party vote share in dutch national parliament elections 1971 2010 international journal of biometeorology 56 6 1161 5 pmid 22065127 gomez b hansford t krause g 2007 the republicans should pray for rain weather turnout and voting in u s presidential elections the journal of politics 69 03 649 663 doi 10 1111 j 1468 2508 2007 00565 x if you liked this post you may also like its sister post obama should pray for sun psycho meteorological effects on approval ratings pictures 1 by brian rawson ketchum via wikimedia commons 2 by fogster own work via wikimedia commons if you were not entirely indiffirent to this post please leave a comment posted in cognitive science applications richard kunert and tagged causal chain election emotion helping mood obama romney on october 21 2012 by richard kunert 3 comments the mysterious appeal of too loud music what would your next step have been at 39km above planet earth would you have made felix baumgartner s step off the platform it was very dangerous no doubt but is this the reason why you wouldn t have people engage in many dangerous things and i am not talking about skydiving i mean the ordinary every day kind of danger surely some dangers can hardly be avoided say road traffic which is the leading cause of death for people in my age group for others there is no obvious non dangerous equivalent but what if there was an activity with no practical value which could easily be carried out without danger but which nonetheless millions of people worldwide engage in listening to too loud music is such an activity is this an exaggeration surely if loud music was really dangerous people would avoid it make no mistake the scientific consensus clearly lays out the danger round about half the people exposed to music professionally show some hearing loss researchers have found worrying hearing impairments in classical musicians rock pop musicians and music bar tenders and the danger is not limited to professionals the majority of rock concert attendees experience temporary auditory problems such as tinnitus or being hard of hearing you are actually a daredevil when you listen to too loud music but this behaviour is not limited to your typical daredevil characters à la felix baumgartner people flock to very loud concerts even toddlers prefer fast and loud music over slow and quiet music perhaps the clearest example for loudness s paradoxical appeal is the band sun 0 their music is without discernible rhythm harmony or melody pure loudness and still they are successful hear for yourself the sun 0 concert is a good example of the mysterious attraction of too loud music but it may also offer clues for understanding why people subject themselves to it actually not just this band s concerts are too loud most concerts are and so are night clubs this is not the place to go to for a quiet night out this is where you want energy fun and excitement it turns out that this is exactly what loud music is associated with an australian research team led by roger dean showed that the perceived arousal of music whether a classical piece or sun 0 like noise followed its loudness profile sweet melody or not when people go out they want energetic music and this music happens to be loud beyond going out why listen to too loud music when sitting still however such an explanation can only be part of the answer we have all seen the person on the bus with his headphones in or were annoyed by the colleague on the next desk with his music choice permeating the office through his headphones these people are not out dancing they look pretty low energy if anything and still they put their hearing at risk neil todd and frederick cody from the university of manchester may offer a solution to the puzzle they found that loud tones not only activate our sense of hearing but also our sense of balance this happens because the nice distinction between these two modalities does not work for a structure in the ear called the saccule it responds to head movements as well as rather low sounds through this structure muscles automatically react explaining why deaf people s muscles can nonetheless react to loud clicks whereas vestibularly impaired people s can t todd and cody found the saccule to start reacting around the so called rock n roll threshold of 105 db is it just a coincidence that the beat of club music is typically in the tonal range and at the loudness level of the saccule could it be that the enjoyment of too loud music works through the same mechanism as the pleasure derived from baby swings roller coasters and head banging if so the fun of skydiving and too loud music listening may have more in common than generally thought yellow hearing brown balance the saccule is neither the greatest mystery surrounding too loud music though are not people seeking it in quiet environments such as the bus or the office the strangest thing is the appeal of too loud environments even when one plugs the ears it has become more and more common to go to rock concerts with ear plugs the obvious question is why people don t just refrain from going to rock concerts all together and wait until concert organisers realise that they overdid it with the decibel levels seeking intimacy through loudness the final piece of the puzzle could be an idea exemplified in research done by russo and colleagues from ryerson university they found that ordinary people could successfully distinguish piano cello and trombone tones which they never heard but instead only felt on their backs even deaf people were able to do this this research suggests that yet again the involvement of a second modality explains too loud music seeking hearing and vision are often grouped together because they reveal distant information smell taste and touch on the other hand are intimate sensations only available when directly interacting with an object or person if someone sees or hears your fiancé e you may not mind but imagine if someone tried to touch or even taste him her there is something intimate about touch and perhaps we seek this intimacy when trying to immerse ourselves in music incidentally this is also what was advertised as the novelty of felix baumgartner s jump for the first time someone can say what it felt like to break the sound barrier previously people only knew what it sounded and looked like somehow this was not enough we are curious about what he will report because we attach so much importance to the immediacy of touch for touching music we need lo...