Summer is here! ....Aaaaaand it's gone

Have you ever noticed that time goes by faster now than before? One day you were 15, freshly graduated from your care-free days at high school then the next moment you realize you're having a crisis on which jobs you can take before your parents kick you out from their houses effectively cutting your free internet connection (you better start searching for the nearest McDonald's - no, you can't afford Starbucks). 

DonCha Dare Not Think Chocolates

            Imagine yourself being stressed out after taking a mind-boggling exam and the only thing that pops out to your mind as one way of saving yourself is eating your favorite chocolate but oops! You are on a chocolate fasting! At that time, we do everything for us not to think of chocolate or encounter anything related to chocolates. However, for chocoholics on diet, it is very difficult or should we say, suicidal. We avoid thinking about chocolates so that we might be successful not to take even a bite. But have you realized that the more you avoid thinking of yourself eating chocolate, the more you crave for it, the more you think of ways to get some for yourself, the more you think also of counter arguments that would make you break your chocolate fasting for the moment?

            A recent study by Erskine & Georgiou, (2010) about thought suppression showed that there is a greater tendency for an action to occur if the thought of doing it is suppressed. Participants were randomly grouped into three where in the first group told to suppress thoughts of chocolates, the second group was told to think of chocolates and the third was told to think of anything they wished for. Without knowing that the amount of chocolate consumed was rated, they were told to rate two brands of chocolate on several taste characteristics. Surprisingly, the group who was told to suppress thoughts of chocolates were the ones who significantly consumed more than those who were thinking of chocolates.

           Such could be the big reason why people who avoid thinking of chocolates are the ones who have the strongest craving for it.

            This might be because of the occurrence of rebound effect of which unanticipated conflict arise when a particular thought, behavior or desire is suppressed. Rebound effect happens because striving vigorously to divert thoughts from chocolate make the desire dissipate but after a period of time, however, this desire or craving returns, stronger than was the craving experienced before the thought of eating was suppressed (Wenzlaff & Bates, 2000 as cited in Moss, 2008).

            To resolve this, it is better to entertain thoughts of eating chocolate and asking yourself for the reason of your desire for it. For many times, when we respond to these thoughts, we often decrease the tendency of doing such. There would no conflict inside of you that is usually solved by finally getting a bar of chocolate. Thus, in your next chocolate diet, you will be more successful if you imagine chocolates.

Sources:

Erskine, J.A. & Georgiu, G.J. (2010). Effects of thought suppression on eating behaviour in restrained and non-restrained eaters. Appetite, 54(3), 499-503. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20152872

Moss, S. (2008). Ironic rebound effect. Psychlopedia: Everything Psychology. Retrieved August 12, 2012, from www.psych-it.com.au/Psychlopedia/article.asp?id=133

Why the last piece of chocolate tastes best

Have you ever wondered why the last piece of cake, the last slice of pizza, or the last bite in a hamburger tastes especially delicious? Nope, there’s no magic involved since no ingredient is secretly added. Just the fact that it is the last makes it really special.

In a taste perception experiment by O’Brien and Ellsworth (2012) published in the Psychological Science, they recruited 52 students from University of Michigan to evaluate new flavors of Hershey’s Kisses. Each participant was randomly given five chocolates with different flavors: milk, dark, creme, caramel, and almond.

The participants were randomly assigned into two conditions. One treatment is where an experimenter would tell them “Here is your next chocolate” after every turn up to the last chocolate. On the other condition, the experimenter still said the same thing after every turn, but before giving the fifth chocolate, he would say “Here is your last chocolate”.

As they had predicted, it was found that the participants rated the 5th chocolate (irrespective of flavor) more delicious when they have been told that it was the last, as compared to when it’s just another chocolate they would taste. They have also found that the overall eating experience was more enjoyable when the last chocolate was made salient.

What makes it more intriguing is that it is just a mock “ending” since the participants could still eat chocolates even after the experiment. Just the fact that they were made aware that they would be eating the last chocolate in the series makes the 5th chocolate extra-special, showing our biases in end experiences.

Ersner-Hershfield et al. (2008) even show how senior students always have mixed emotions whenever they are reminded of graduation day as compared to those who are not expecting to graduate. Also, they found that people perceive a meaningful location to be more beautiful when they were told that they would see it for the final time.  Indeed, temporal knowledge not only affects taste perception, but also poignancy felt by people while perceiving situations or places.

This is really interesting because the current research suggests, aside from adding up to a plethora of evidence that highlight how we give value to the “lasts”, that not only do we give importance on the significant experiences that end, but on mundane things (i.e. eating chocolates) as well.

 

This struck me as having a lot of astounding implications. Our unconscious bias to endings may give a favorable but undeserved treatment to the last student who presented a report, the last performer we watched, or the last applicant for a job. Being able to anticipate the last should also come hand-in-hand with the awareness that there is such a thing as a positivity bias for these endings.

So the next time you open a pack of chocolates, study for an exam, or just have lunch with a friend, why don’t you savor it by thinking every day as if it is your last?

References:

O’Brien, E. & Ellsworth, P. (2012). Saving the Last for Best: A Positivity Bias for End Experiences. Psychological Science, 23(2), 163-165. Retrieved from http://www.sitemaker.umich.edu/eob/files/obrienellsworth2012.pdf       

Ersner-Hershfield, H., Mikels, J., Sullivan, S., & Carstensen, L. (2008). Poignancy: Mixed Emotional Experience in the Face of Meaningful Endings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94(1), 158-167. Retrieved from http://people.stern.nyu.edu/hhershfi/resources/Research/Journal-of-Personality-and-Social-Psychology-2008-Ersner-Hershfield.pdf 

Tuscany chocolate [Photograph]. (2008). Retrieved August 12, 2012, from http://www.wayfaring.info/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/tuscany_chocolates3.jpg   

         

Amortentia

And --

body odor and rubber?

No, not unless that's how Ron Weasley smells like. 

According to the results of a study by Demattè, Österbauer, and Spence (2007), olfactory cues play a role in judging facial attractiveness, particularly unpleasant odors.

They designed an experiment wherein female participants had to rate the attractiveness of a male face presented on a computer monitor while simultaneously being exposed to one of four odors--clean air, male fragrance, body odor, and rubber. Each of the 16 participants was exposed to the three types of odors, pleasant-male fragrance, neutral-clean air, and unpleasant-rubber or body odor. 

Their results indicate that participants rated the attractiveness of a face significantly less when exposed to an unpleasant odor as opposed to a pleasant or neutral odor. Furthermore, no difference was found in the attractiveness rating when they were exposed to a neutral or pleasant scent. Neither did it matter if the odor was "body relevant", that is, rubber and body odor had the same effect.  

But wait... 

Isn't body odor a manifestation of pheromones which trigger sexual attraction? 

Well, that depends on whether or not we have a vomeronasal organ or VNO, which is responsible for the detection of pheromones.

Some say it's there but it's too small, others say it still works, and the rest say that there isn't one at all. From an evolutionary perspective, it has become obsolete for us humans, we lack the brain parts, and if a scientist happens to find a VNO region, it's simply a vestige. (Thank you, Mr. F. Bryant Furlow, for summing up a rather lengthy debate.)  

Hold that deodorant though!

In an article about body odor and attraction, Dr. Jessica Payne summarized a study conducted back in 2005 by Martins, Preti, Crabtree, Runyan, Vainius, and Wysocki. Their results indicate that body odors affect attraction and that there are different body odors for each gender. Participants were made to bathe with odorless products as well as abstain from strong smelling spices and keep cotton wedges between their arm puts for ...

NINE DAYS! 

They were then asked to rate the pleasantness of the odors captured in those cotton wedges. It turns out that  heterosexual men, heterosexual women, homosexual men, and homosexual women all had different emitted odors and odor preferences. 

So what happened to the study by Demattè, Österbauer, and Spence?

Why did body odor cause a lower rating of attractiveness?

It might be that the body odor they exposed their participants too was really too foul and unpleasant, or their participants weren't exposed to the right gender's body odor.

Too bad for Jean-Baptiste Grenouille though, he didn't smell like rubber or B.O. and one drop of his final perfume made him irresistible to all...

genders.