Beer Goggles at Work

ENTERTAINMENT/SEX - According to Professor Lewis Halsey and two colleagues from Roehampton University they've discovered that "Beer Goggles" doesn't just impair one's judgement, but also effects our sense of beauty.

The trio interviewed a long list of students visiting a local pub near the university and did a series of tests by showing them photos of people to see if they could tell the images had been altered to make them less symmetrical.

Symmetry is considered to be an important aspect of what makes a person beautiful. After dividing the people into two groups (drunk vs non-drunk) using a breathalyzer they determined that drunk people are unable to differentiate assymetry.



Thus "Beer Goggles" really does make people around you look more attractive, at least as far as your brain is concerned.

Tracking the results the researchers also discovered women are more prone to losing their sense of assymetry. Not because they get drunk easier, oh no, its because men pay more attention to appearance... or more precisely, men leer at women and are checking out their breasts/etc in detail.

In which case leering may actually be an evolutionary skill designed to pick out women which are more symmetrical and healthy looking. Whoddathunkit?

Breadwinning & Cheating at Work

SEX - According to new research was recently presented at the American Sociological Association...

Spouses that are financially dependent on their spouse are more likely to cheat, and this is the same regardless of whether they are male or female.

This flies in face of the belief (now proven false) that if someone is financially dependent they will be more faithful. This is actually the opposite. Feeling dependent on someone causes depression and people naturally end up looking for someone else to be their new soulmate, someone with whom they are on a more equal footing.

According to the report people often need an ego boost and an extramarital affair (a big secret) often feels like an ego boost (at least in the beginning). The report doesn't go into detail about what happens after the affair is over, whether the cheater ever confesses and what repercussions occur.

The report, titled "The Effect of Relative Income Disparity on Infidelity for Men and Women", is by Christin Munsch a sociology Ph.D. student at Cornell University and tracks 18 to 28 year old married or common-law couples who were together for more than a year. The report also takes into account and compensates for issues of age, education level, income, religious attendance and relationship satisfaction.

Apparently men are especially vulnerable to infidelity because they traditionally fit the role of breadwinner and when the wife or girlfriend makes more than they do it sparks feelings of inadequacy.

Measurement wise men who are 100% dependent on the women's income are 5 times more likely to cheat.

However this is another factor this report ignores... its called more free time = more time available to cheat. A wife who works 9 to 5 means the husband has plenty of time to cheat in the morning and afternoon.

The reverse is also true however... men who make significantly more than their female counterparts are also more likely to cheat.

The only time men aren't likely to cheat is when their partners make roughly the same or 75% of their incomes.



However this doesn't mean women should be discouraged from pursuing higher paying jobs and careers. If anything this discourages both men and women from chasing after the higher paying jobs because they are both more likely to cheat (and likewise their spouses are more likely to cheat) when there is a huge gap in their salaries.

The good news is that cheaters' wandering eyes stop wandering so much as they age. They might still be looking, but they're not acting on their sexual impulses as much as they did when they were younger.

On a personal note I believe a couple, any couple, should be obsessed with each other. They wouldn't even think of cheating because they are so utterly obsessed and in love with the other person.

Furthermore, it has to be mutual. You can't have one person obsessed with the other, doting on them, bestoying affection and romantic gestures all the time, because then the other person who isn't obsessed and in love feels like they're being smothered and begins to find all the attention annoying.

Its much better to be obsessed and lovey-dovey with each other, because at least then you're only annoying other people who have to endure the public displays of affection and not the ones you care about.

"If you marry a man who cheats on his wife, you'll be married to a man who cheats on his wife." - Ann Landers.

Disciplining Your Kids at Work

HEALTH - I've put this under "health" because frankly good discipline is a mental health issue, plus knowing how to properly discipline your children without hurting them is certainly a health matter too.

There is essentially 5 levels of how to discipline your children. Some of them are more controversial than others, and the bottom two are basically illegal.

1. Minimalist / Anti-Discipline

Some parents don't like to discipline their children. They basically let their children run wild and only attempt to discipline them when they do something really bad. The problem with these parents is they've adopted a pacifist approach to discipline, so their methodology is things like "no dessert", "go stand in the corner", "no TV", "no computer", "no phone or cellphone", etc. Another problem these parents face however is children who cry, whine and act up until they get what they want. Such parents have a strong tendency to flip flop and renege on their punishment... sometimes even REWARDING bad behaviour by later offering to buy the kid a new toy just to get them to stop crying.

2. Pro-Discipline

These parents are no nonsense when it comes to discipline. They punish their kids, ground them, take things/privileges away and they refuse to back down on the issue. Their results may vary depending on the parent and the methodology, but at least they're not being wishy-washing and then rewarding the kid for bad behaviour.

3. Pro-Spanking & Ear Tugging

Spanking or ear tugging your child is perfectly legal. The exact wording of local laws may vary (and this may not be allowed in certain European countries), but in North America all parents have the right to spank or tug the ears of their children when they misbehave. Brazil and several South American countries have also outlawed spanking. Spanking and ear-tugging causes no damage, only light bruising which fades very quickly. The biggest aspect of this form of punishment is that its more about humiliation and embarrassment. The child will be embarrassed by the spanking and will think twice before doing activities that might induce another embarrassment.

4. Legal Grey Zone

This could be anything really. "Cruel and unusual punishment" could for example be forcing the kid to apologize to all the neighbours they had wronged and atoning for their misdeeds. But it could also be forms of physical punishment / work which we normally don't think of... ie. Having to chop wood for the woodstove for 3 hours before being allowed to eat; 200+ pushups; etc... some of these get into areas which most people would consider to be abuse and parental neglect. Twisting a child's arm for example on purpose would be crossing the line.

5. Out Right Illegal

Beating up the child, starving them, forced isolation, serious physical harm and then covering up the injuries with stories of falling down the stairs, etc. It doesn't take a lawyer to figure out these are going overboard.

Conclusions: Now evidently options #2 and #3 are the best ones and parents might even use the "cruel and unusual punishment" part of #4 if the situation warrants an unusual punishment. ie. You probably won't spank your teenager, but you might confiscate their cellphone and cut off their internet for the whole summer when they're caught gambling online... combined with forcing them to help out at a homeless shelter until they realize the road gambling can sometimes lead to.

The end goal is not to enact revenge on your child, but to encourage them through positive and negative reinforcement that certain types of behaviour will not be tolerated especially as they get older. As parents we have a responsibility to discipline our children so they don't grow up and turn into psychos because of parental neglect. Children can get into all sorts of trouble if allowed to run amok, raising children who eventually as adults run amok is a sure sign that the parents failed in their duty to properly discipline their kids.

DISCLAIMER TO YUPPIES: You may think you're doing your child a favour by not disciplining them or "sparing the rod and spoiling the child", but in reality you are doing them and the rest of society a disservice by raising someone who will ultimately be spoiled rotten.

Ouch that hurts

SEX - Oh the pain, oh the pain!