Top 10 Strange Studies with Unexpected Results
10.
Most Of Us Have Murder Fantasies
Evolutionary psychologist David Buss decided to take a survey of his University of Texas
at Austin students to see if any of them had ever fantasized about murder.
He discovered 75 percent of them said that they had, so he decided to do a formal survey
of approximately 5,000 people around the world.
His results showed that 91 percent of men, and 84 percent of women have had a fantasy
about murdering someone.
In addition to the survey, he reviewed and analyzed the FBI files of more than 400,000
murders.
Buss concluded that “killing is fundamentally in our nature because over the eons of human
evolution murder was so surprisingly beneficial in the intense game of reproductive competition.”
Additionally, Buss concluded that men are more likely to kill someone if they’ve become
humiliated because it could hurt their ability to attract a mate.
9.
American Breasts Are Getting Bigger
According to the lingerie retailer Intimacy, the average American bra size has jumped from
a modest 34B, to a voluptuous 34DD.
Intimacy interviewed more than 60,000 customers, and compared the results to another study
done in 1992.
The conclusion was that today, women are buying bigger bras than they were 20 years ago.
Intimacy spokeswoman Kate Terhune told the Huffington Post that a few reasons why the
average bra size has gone up is because of weight gain and the increase of women getting
breast implants.
However, she says that the biggest factor is that today, women are more educated about
how a bra should fit, and are choosing the right size.
It’s actually gotten to the point where retailers are starting to receive complaints
from customers that aren’t seeing fashionable choices in bigger sizes, or bras that are
big enough in general.
8.
British Teens Think Sherlock Holmes Was Real
There’s a prevailing thought that kids today don’t know as many famous historical figures
as older generations, so a group of researchers decided to put that to the test.
A survey of 3,000 British youths posed questions about historical figures that adults might
think were common sense.
For example, 47% of the participants in the study thought that the King Richard the Lionheart
was fictional.
Another question participants were asked was whether or not Sherlock Holmes was a real
detective at some point in history.
An astonishing 58% of participants said he was.
Of course, Sherlock Holmes is a completely fictional invention of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that the participants didn’t know a whole
lot about historical figures.
Researchers also asked participants how often they read history books, or if they watched
historical television, and 77% of the participants said that they did not read about history,
and 61% said that they would immediately change the channel if a historical program came on.
7.
Internet Trolls Are Likely To Be Sadists
Three psychologists from the University of Manitoba took to the Internet to analyze commenters
in an effort to gauge online personalities from a mental standpoint, and quickly discovered
that those who engage in “trolling” are also likely to show signs of sadism, psychopathy,
and Machiavellianism.
Essentially, sadism means enjoying the harm of others, psychopathy is an antisocial personality
disorder, and Machiavellianism is a reflection of someone’s tendency to be unemotional
and deceitful.
In other words, an Internet troll.
The researchers studied the commenting styles of 1,215 people.
They stated that the most conclusive finding in their research was that there is a direct
link between trolling and sadism.
“Both trolls and sadists feel sadistic glee at the distress of others,” the researchers
wrote in their study.
Of course, one explanation is that the results could just be a reflection of the online disinhibition
effect, which leads us to treat other people online as less than human simply because we
aren’t dealing with them face to face.
6.
The Eyferth Study
The results of the Eyferth study shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone in the modern
day, but at the time it was considered ground breaking and revolutionary.
The study was named after Klaus Eyferth, a psychologist who was curious as to whether
or not there was a biological difference in the IQs of white and racially mixed children.
The study took place in West Germany, post-World War II.
The mothers of the children involved in the study were German women, who had slept with
white or African-american members of the US occupation forces.
The study was published in 1959 and revealed that the children, aged 5 to 13, were around
the same level of intelligence.
This study has been used as evidence that racial IQ differences are a result of cultural
and environmental factors, rather than genetic ones.
While this seems obvious to us know, at the time it flew in the face of the unfortunate
belief that whites were inherently more intelligent than blacks.
5.
John Hopkins Magic Mushroom Studies
Researchers at John Hopkins University have been publishing some very interesting studies
in recent years about the effects of psilocybin mushrooms, also known as magic mushrooms.
One study was published indicating that the use of magic mushrooms is incredibly effective
in getting smokers to kick the habit.
Amazingly, 80% of participants were able to stop smoking after being treated with three
heavily monitored psychedelic sessions, compared to a 35% success rate for the leading tobacco
addiction treatment drugs.
In addition to discovering that psilocybin has the potential to help people quit smoking,
it was also discovered that it has a long-term effect on the brain that can alter a person’s
personality for the better.
Magic mushrooms can change the chemical makeup of the user’s brain to make them focus on
creativity, their passion, and make them more open about their feelings and the way they
perceive things.
In another study published by JHU behavioural biology professor Roland Griffiths, virtually
all participants who took the mushrooms emerged from the study feeling better about themselves.
Their friends, family, and colleagues said that the psilocybin experience made the participants
happier, calmer, and kinder.
4.
Two-Thirds of American Vegetarians Eat Meat
According to Vegetarianism In America, 3.2% of adults in the United States follow a vegan-based
diet.
However, not all of those vegetarians are sticking to their diet as strictly as they
would like you to believe.
In 2003, a study published by the US Department of Agriculture revealed that the organization
randomly telephoned 13,313 Americans, and when those same people were called again a
week later, 66% of the self-proclaimed vegetarians had admitted to eating animal flesh in the
last 24 hours.
An earlier poll taken in 2002 by CNN on the eating habits of 10,000 Americans revealed
that 6% of Americans considered themselves vegetarians.
However, when asked if they had eaten red meat, poultry, or fish in the past 24 hours,
60% of them revealed that they had.
3.
Oregon Panhandlers Make A Fortune
In 2008, Oregon police officers decided to take a survey of panhandlers outside of a
Walmart in Coos Bay.
What they discovered is that a panhandler outside of the store can make up to $300 a
day, but it would take a cashier a week to earn that much money.
In other words, if you wanted to earn a little extra money, begging for handouts in the street
is a potentially lucrative way to do it.
According to the Coos Bay police, most of the people asking for money live in the city
and actually have homes, indicating, “this is just their chosen profession.”
In a more recent investigation, a reporter named Katie Higgins decided to see how much
panhandling could actually earn.
In an hour, she made $8 and half a turkey sandwich.
Who knew you could make a living off of the kindness of strangers?
2.
43% of Canadians Prefer Bacon to Sex
When you think of Canada, “bacon” is typically one of the first things that springs to mind.
According to science, that stereotype is actually well founded.
A study conducted in 2010 by Maple Leaf Foods Inc. revealed that 43% of Canadians would
choose bacon over sex if it ever came down to it.
When men were asked to rank a series of aromas in order of preference, 23% of men ranked
the smell of bacon first.
Canadians are serious about their bacon.
Luckily, Canadians don’t have to choose one or the other thanks to a personal product
called Baconlube.
When launched in 2011, the lubricant was – not surprisingly – the first and only bacon-based
personal lubricant on the market.
During the initial campaign, the lubricant poked fun at the Maple Leaf Foods study, stating
that “Canadians will never have to choose between two of life’s greatest pleasures
again.”
Maple Leaf Foods Inc. and Baconlube: perpetuating Canadian stereotypes since 2010.
1.
Married Women Drink More
It’s become a sitcom trope that married men are guilty of trying to find any excuse
to go the bar and have a few drinks, but a 2012 study revealed that married men actually
drink less than their single counterparts.
On the flip side, the results concluded that women actually drink more after marriage.
Corinne Reczek, an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati who reviewed
data involving thousands of Wisconsin natives, conducted the study.
In addition to that data, she looked into a separate study of 120 interviews with married,
divorced, widowed, and single people about their lifestyles.
Reczek presented the data to the American Sociological Association, stating that men
are guilty of coaxing their wives into drinking more, whereas women try to keep their partners’
drinking under control.
When a couple divorces, a man will drink more, partly because he externalizes his feelings
but also because he doesn’t have anyone telling him to slow down.
A woman will drink less, partly because typically woman internalize their issues, but mostly
because she doesn’t have a spouse trying to get her liquored up.