Cleaning Out My Closet

A few items I'd been meaning to call out:

The Japanese Need More Sex:

A recent Durex global sex survey shows that only 14 percent of the Japanese are having as much sex as they'd like. The next most repressed are the Chinese at 30 percent.

Chris Dillow at Stumbling and Mumbling uses the data to see if sex and masturbation are substitutes or complements.

More on Racism:

Researchers have found that

"ambiguous racism is more detrimental to African American students' performance on a mental task, than is blatant racism, psychologists have shown. By contrast, the reverse is true for White students, for whom blatant racism is more distracting."

(BPS Research Digest)

Hourly Vs. Salaried Pay:

The movement towards flexible working arrangements might actually make us work even more. When the subjects of a recent study were asked to view their annual salaries in terms of dollars per hour, they were more likely to change their perception of time, saying they'd rather work more hours for more money.

(Also from BPS Research Digest)

Recommendation Engines Might Miss the Long Tail

The much-hyped recommendation engines of sites like Amazon and Netflix might not be helping to feed the long tail.

(Research Recap)