Twenty years too late

Remember when Mom used to roll out that chart of y'all's chores for the week, and you used to moan and groan about it? Well, there's scientific proof that she was doing you ingrates a favor, even if it did come 20 years too late. 

 

For example, three doctors [1] from the University of Virginia Children's Hospital (Go Hoos!) analyzed data from almost 10,000 children entering kindergarten in 2010 to 2011. The kids' parents reported how often their children did chores. When the kids were in the third grade, they responded to a questionnaire regarding their perceived interest or competence in academics, peer relationships, prosocial behavior, and life satisfaction. They also completed direct academic assessments for reading, math, and science. The doctors analyzed the data and found, among other things, that "[t]he frequency of chores in kindergarten was positively associated with a child's perception of social, academic, and life satisfaction competencies in the third grade, independent of sex, family income, and parent education," and that "[p]erforming chores with any frequency in kindergarten was associated with improved math scores in the third grade." This led the UVA docs to conclude that "performing chores in early elementary school was associated with later development of self-competence, prosocial behavior, and self-efficacy."

 

My fig crop, episode V

Our fig tree is outdoing itself this year. We are picking pounds of figs every day, many of them right from the deck because the tree has grown so tall.

Which leads to the inevitable issue of what to do with all of these figs, other than just eating them by the bowlful. 

 

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Pizza math

Do you want the best deal when you're buying pizza? Simple math says always get the biggest pie. Dr. Ho's Humble Pie is the best pizza in the C-ville area (unless you want real Neapolitan style from Lampo, but Lampo's pies are one size fits all, so they won't work for this exercise anyway), so we'll use Dr. Ho's to do the math.

 

The formula for calculating the area of a circle is, fittingly, 𝜋r². Setting aside the 10-inch "gluten friendly" pies, Dr. Ho's offers its specialty pizzas in two sizes: 14 inches for $22.75, and 16 inches for $24.75. The area of a 14-inch pizza is about 154 square inches. The area of a 16-inch pizza is about 201 square inches. That's about 30% more pizza for 8.8% more money.* Just those two extra inches get you way more cheesy delicious goodness for your buck. If you don't want to eat it all, split it with a friend; who doesn't love pizza?

 

And what about the gluten friendly pies? The area of a 10-inch pizza is about 79 square inches. A 10-inch specialty pizza goes for $17.50. So even compared to a lower value 14-inch pie, you're getting about half the pizza for about three-quarters of the price. Compared to a 16-inch pie, you're getting about 39% of the pizza for about 71% of the price! The GF penalty rears its ugly head.

 

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*Feel free to check my math. I never would have made it through my intro stats class at Hopkins without your mother.

 

Photo by Chad Montano on Unsplash

  

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Fart walk

I stumbled across an episode of NPR's Life Kit podcast called “Why you should take a ‘fart walk’ after a meal.” Despite the edgy (for NPR) title, it ended up being stuff that Mom has been advocating for a while now: take a short walk after a meal to jump start your digestive process and help regulate your blood sugar. Another side benefit is to help you sleep better. The guidelines for a post-meal fart walk are simple and inviting—

• You don't need much: 5 minutes is enough, 15 minutes is great if you have the time.
• A casual (walking the dog) pace is okay; if you want to get in some cardio too, then you can up the pace to brisk.
• Start walking within 30 minutes after a meal.
• Walking is great after any meal but especially helpful after your biggest meal of the day, so usually dinner in the US. 

Photo by Marco Antonio Casique Reyes on Unsplash

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What you probably have backwards about romantic relationships

Photo by Everton Vila on Unsplash

The title of this 2024 paper by Iris Wahring and colleagues says it all: "Romantic Relationships Matter More to Men than to Women." I bet you had that one backwards.

 

The authors start with the widespread view that women are "more romantic than men, and romantic relationships are assumed to be more central to the lives of women than to those of men." But based on recent research painting a different picture, they propose that, relative to women, men actually (1) "expect to obtain greater benefits from relationship formation and thus strive more strongly for a romantic partner"; (2) "benefit more from romantic relationship involvement in terms of their mental and physical health"; (3) "are less likely to initiate breakups"; and (4) "suffer more from relationship dissolution." 

 

Why should romantic relationships be more consequential to men than to women? It's simple, really: "The basic mechanism [is] that men perceive less intimacy and less emotional support from their social ties beyond romantic partners." In other words, everyone needs intimacy and emotional support, but women can get that from their women friends and family members* while the vast majority of men are not getting enough of that while hanging out with their bros watching sports. So men have to turn to their female romantic partners to get the same kind of emotional support that women are getting from their other social relationships. Men, remember that when you're looking to make some new male friends.

 

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*One theory is that "women (relative to men) are more inclined to turn to others when distressed in a tending and befriending manner – that is, banding together with others for mutual support, resources, and protection," which causes "the release of oxytocin known to facilitate affiliation and emotional bonding with other people."

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Walk it out

Having a conflict with someone? Walk it out. That's the suggestion from a social psychology paper I like by three Columbia psychology professors.* Why would this work?

 

First, there are the intrapersonal benefits of walking. People evolved to think on our feet, so we generate more creative ideas while moving. History is full of stories of authors, scientists, and philosophers (like Darwin, Kierkegaard, and Thoreau) who professed to formulate their best ideas while walking. Nietzsche famously said that "all truly great thoughts are conceived by walking." How many times have you been stuck on a problem and hit on the solution after getting up and moving around? The authors cite various studies finding, for example, that participants were much more likely to generate novel, high-quality analogies when walking compared to sitting. That counteracts the narrowing of vision created by conflict. In addition, other studies have found that physical activity increases positive affect and lowers stress. If you're in a better mood and less stressed out, then you're going to be more receptive to working through conflict.

Conversation starters, Mom style

After a recent dinner, Brad complained that our conversations are always the same, that is, boring ("How's work?"; bad political news, etc.). There are plenty of conversation starters available on the internet, so I clipped some out and stuck them in a jar on our table for when the need arises.

 

The ultimate conversation starters are the 36 deep questions developed by social psychologist Arthur Aron and colleagues. Their now famous paper is titled "The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings." But the method they developed to generate "interpersonal closeness" is better known as the "fast friends" procedure. An article in the New York Times "Modern Love" series ("To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This") that went viral in 2015 described how the author and a "university acquaintance" fell in love going through the 36 questions together.