A team of researchers looked into why people enjoy listening to music. They found that the reason must be related to our brain's reaction: when we listen to music, our brain releases a chemical that activates its pleasure centers. They also found that if we listen to music, our blood pressure will drop. That's because music can make the brain produce a certain type of calcium that lowers blood pressure. In tests on rats, it only took 30 minutes of Mozart to bring their high blood pressure down to the normal range.

Microbeads are tiny pieces of plastic that are found in many beauty products and other products, such as detergent. Unfortunately, fish and other ocean creatures can confuse them for food. Eating them causes serious problems and may affect growth. Therefore, the UK government banned the use of microbeads in cosmetics in 2018. Environmental groups, however, are not satisfied. They say if the government had been serious about protecting the ocean, it would have banned microbeads from all products, not just cosmetics.

When people explain social behavior, they often make a mistake called the "fundamental attribution error." People usually attribute their own negative actions to external factors outside of their control. However, they have a tendency to attribute the mistakes of others to internal factors, such as intelligence or personality. For example, a person failing a test might explain that the test was unfair. But if a classmate were to fail, that same person would be likely to attribute it to something internal, such as being lazy or not studying enough.

We must be careful when looking at proverbs as expressing aspects of a certain worldview or mentality of a people. That is, no fixed conclusions about a so-called "national character" should be drawn. There are so many popular proverbs from classical, Biblical, and medieval times current in various cultures that it would be foolish to think of them as showing some imagined national character. Nevertheless, the frequent use of certain proverbs in a particular culture could be used together with other social and cultural indicators to form some common concepts. Thus, if the Germans really do use the proverb, "Morgenstunde hat Gold im Munde" (The morning hour has gold in its mouth) with high frequency, then it does mirror at least to some degree the German attitude towards getting up early. ─> Although proverbs can not directly reflect national character, the frequent use of certain proverbs is likely to from general concepts of a nation.

Have you ever slipped and fallen in school? It may have been very embarrassing. Even though you probably think people are still laughing about it, chances are that nobody else even remembers. This can be explained by the spotlight effect. It is our tendency to see things only from our own perspective and to overestimate how closely others are paying attention to us. To demonstrate it, researchers had students wear a T-shirt with an embarrassing image on it. They then asked students to estimate how many classmates would remember the shirt later. The average number they guessed was approximately twice as large as the actual number of students who remembered it. The researchers believe this might be caused by extreme self-awareness and the inability to view ourselves from the perspective of others. ─> Researchers found that people observe us less closely than we think.

If you were trying to lose weight, what would you do? Two common methods are exercising regularly and avoiding sweets. Unfortunately, exercising can increase the likelihood that you'll want dessert. In a study, volunteers held a joystick while looking at images of everyday items and desserts. The researchers monitored the hand movements of the volunteers, as pulling the joystick toward their bodies indicated positive feelings. Afterwards, half the volunteers exercised, while the other half did memory puzzles. Then both groups repeated the joystick activity. The results showed that the volunteers who exercised were more attracted to the pictures of desserts than the others. This may occur because the body seeks to replace lost energy through the consumption of calories. ─> Research shows that people who exercise desire dessert more than those who do mental activities.

Great ideas do not come by chance. They may sometimes seem to arise suddenly, but upon closer examination, they require much more than luck. Take Isaac Newton, for example. According to legend, he was sitting under an apple tree when, "by chance," an apple fell to the ground. This caused him to think, and eventually he discovered the basic laws of gravity. But apples always fall to the ground. If the apple had shot up into the sky instead, it would have been an extraordinary event, one that even an unintelligent observer would have wondered about. But the falling apple was an ordinary event. It was Newton's mind that was special, and he had made it that way through years of diligent studying and scientific training. ─> Although innovative ideas may sometimes seem to occur by accident, they cannot be created without hard work.

We often assume we see our physical surroundings as they actually are. But new research suggests that how we see the world depends on what we want from it. When a group of psychologists asked people to estimate how far away a bottle of water was, those who were thirsty guessed it was closer than nonthirsty people did. This difference in perception showed up in a physical challenge, too. When people were told to toss a beanbag at a $25 gift card, and that the closest would win it, people threw their beanbags nine inches short on average. But when the gift card's value was $0, people threw their beanbags past the card by an inch. As the brain evolved, people who saw distances to goals as shorter might have gone after what they wanted more often. This error in perception was actually an advantage, leading people to get what they needed. ─> Desired objects are perceived as physically nearer to people than they really are, which might have motivated people to pursue them.

We cannot predict the outcomes of sporting contests, which vary from week to week. This heterogeneity is a feature of sport. It is the uncertainty of the result and the quality of the contest that consumers find attractive. For the sport marketer, this is problematic, as the quality of the contest cannot be guaranteed, no promises can be made in relations to the result and no assurances can be given in respect of the performance of star players. Unlike consumer products, sport cannot and does not display consistency as a key feature of marketing strategies. The sport marketer therefore must avoid marketing strategies based solely on winning, and must instead focus on developing product extensions such as the facility, parking, merchandise, souvenirs, food and beverages rather than on the core product (that is, the game itself). ─> Sports has the essential nature of being unreliable, which requires that its marketing strategies feature products and services more than just the sports match.