I really like this high-level piece in the NYT re: the "online disinhibition effect." When I used to moderate large communities of users who were mostly anonymous and invisible to each other, social interactions degraded to the point of childish absurdity. Once we instituted less anonymous community (users had to have a registered credit card and use their real name) much of this moderation was minimized. Wild.

Quoted: Social neuroscience offers clues into the neural mechanics behind sending messages that are taken as offensive, embarrassing or downright rude.

Strange story about a man who had an injury, lost his penis, got another one successfully attached but then he and his wife had a psychological rejection and he asked to get it removed. Some interesting commentary.

They should put these near the sinks in the mens' public restrooms.

Quoted: In weeks with eyes on the list, staff paid 2.76 times as much for their drinks as in weeks with flowers. “Frankly we were staggered by the size of the effect,” Gilbert Roberts, one of the researchers, told New Scientist.

Take that you close-minded caffeine hating heebs!

Oh, and I can be bribed to support your ideas, just buy me a coffee...

I was part of a UW psych experiment this morning (administered by the user hknapp). It's awesome sitting in her office, which has one-way glass to look into the hallway out of her office. The link is to my blog post.