Tag Archives: study

People Prefer Seeing Individuals Excel Over Teams, New Study Finds

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A new study by researchers at OSU found that people like to see talented people excel, whether in sports or business. They like an individual’s winning streak. But don’t care to see that happen with teams or groups.

People would love to see Usain Bolt win another gold medal but far fewer are interested in seeing the New England Patriots win another Super Bowl, researchers said.

Researchers stated the reason for the phenomenon is that people are inspired by extraordinary individual success in a way team success doesn’t. If Usain Bolt wins another gold medal (and another in a row) it expands what we considered to be the limit of human ability. We do not see team success in the same light. The study found people are simply more moved by individual success.

In one part of the study many more people were excited bout Bolt’s winning a third in a row gold medal in the 100-meter dash than they were by his shared gold medal on the 4×100-meter relay team. Result also showed people would rather see him win a forth gold medal on his own rather than as part of a team.

In one study, they examined people’s views on the success of Usain Bolt, the Jamaican sprinter who won the 100-meter dash in the last three Olympics. Bolt was also a member of a team that won the gold medal in the 4×100-meter relay at those same Olympic games.

The study was published in the “Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.”

 

Baby Boomers’ Cognitive Functions Lower Than Previous Generations New Study Finds

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In a nationwide study authored by OSU faculty researchers found that American baby boomers scored lower on a test for cognitive functioning than previous generations had.

Specifically, findings discovered that average cognition scores of adults at age 50 increased from one generation to the next. The data starting with the greatest generation (birth years 1890-1923) and peaking with war babies (1942-1947).

Cognitive scores declined starting with early boomers (1948-1953) and decreased even further with mid boomers (1954-1959).

Even though a prevalence of dementia has declined recently in the U.S. the new study results suggest this trend could reverse in the coming years.

Researchers pointed out that while this “sudden” reversal is shocking, the most shocking fact is that the data of decline holds true over many groups—in both men and women, across all races, across education levels and across income levels.

The data demonstrated that less wealth in addition to higher levels of loneliness, depression, inactivity and obesity along with less likelihood of being married all could play a role in this cognitive decline.

 

The Science Behind a Bad Yelp Review

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Researchers found that just a couple of negative online reviews for a restaurant could determine early on how many it receives long term.

Researchers stated that online rating platforms claim to be unbiased but that their research found this wasn’t true either. With the way the platforms work the research demonstrated that popular restaurants tend to get more popular while a few initial low reviews will cause one to stagnate.

The study also found that the median income of the neighborhood where the restaurant is located could affect whether or not they get rated at all. In the poorest neighborhoods many restaurants tended not to get rated at all. The study used only economic data to determine this.

The study evaluated Yelp and TripAdvisor reviews for about 3,000 restaurants per website in Franklin County, Ohio. Franklin county is where Columbus and Ohio State are located in addition it is the home of over 20 restaurant chains.

Previous research had found that the food industry considers consumer preferences in this area to be representative of the larger, country-wide market.

The research was published in Papers in Applied Geography

OSU Studies In-Home Interactions Surrounding Energy Use

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New research done at the Ohio State University suggests that your perspective on the thermostat conflict going on in your home in part may depend on whether you are a man or a woman.

This new study has taken a first look at these battles in a sample of Ohio homes. This would be the first study to collect data on joint-decisions by consumers pivoting around home temperature settings and how they might affect energy use.

The study found that there were three types of thermostat setting related interactions: agreements, compromises and conflicts.

Men, the research found, were the most likely to report their thermostat interactions with other household members as agreements or compromises. Meanwhile, women were slightly more likely to report this type of interaction as a conflict. This could mean that individuals’ perceptions of the origin of the interactions or even imply that women are typical the losers in this “war story.”

This work focuses on understanding consumer behavior around energy use including thins like the decision to install solar panels or not; buying a hybrid car or not.
The entirtity of the research can be found in the journal PLOS ONE

New Study Fins Deforestation Isn’t a Major Carbon Contributor

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While it is true that deforestation leads to more carbon in the environment the effect on climate change by cutting down trees may be greatly overestimated, according to new research.

Deforestation caused by the timber industry and to create farmland is known to be responsible for 92 billion some tons of carbon emissions over the past century. This was discovered through a study done by the Ohio State University and Yale University.

This widely accepted estimate, according to researchers, did not take into account a fair few important items such as replanting new trees among other forestry techniques that lessen the burden on the environment due to deforestation.

The new study did take those factors into account and the new data paints a very different picture in parts of the world where intense forest management techniques are being used and to a lesser extent in parts of the world in which management is not so intense.
While previous estimates demonstrated that twenty-seven some percent of manmade carbon emissions were from deforestation. The new data suggests that the correct number is closer to a mere seven percent.

The new study figures that decreasing carbon emission in industry should be the focus.

Researchers warn though that environmental protection work should not be ignored when it comes to forests, as this work is what reduces the impact of deforestation.