What would happen if you strongly believe in something and I shatter your belief? No belief or opinion is an island; it doesn’t live or die alone. And so you go home and realign several of your beliefs that depend on the shattered belief. This is how sociologist Noah E. Friedkin’s opinion dynamics model works. Your stance on one issue may be dependent on your stance on other issues.

There is an underlying cognitive consistency that links multiple stances. Friedkin mentions three US statements (S1, S2 and S3) related to the Iraq War. S1: Saddam Hussein has a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction; S2: Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction are real and present dangers to the region; S3: A preemptive invasion of Iraq would be a just war. S1 added a concomitant certainty to S2 and S3, and a sizeable majority of Americans supported the war.

However, the failure to find the alleged weapons ruled out S1, which resulted in a cascading rejection of S2 and S3. One poster said, “Make Tea, Not War”. Friedkin said: “The cascade of changes occur on multiple issues, and that cascade has a structure to it, which is the logic structure that links a set of issues or beliefs.”

SNEAK PEEK

1. Tickling the ears

We use a TENS device for pain relief. It applies electrical pulses to the tragus (a raised part on the inner side of the external ear). It can tickle your ears, which is really good because stimulating nerves in your ear could improve the health of your heart. Who found this using a TENS machine?

1. Dr Jennifer Clancy (University of Leeds)

2. Orthorexia nervosa

Clean eating is imperative to a healthy lifestyle but a preoccupation with it (orthorexia nervosa) can lead to malnourishment or make it very hard to socialise with people in contexts that involve eating. And it can be expensive and time-consuming as well. Who explained how this works?

2. York University psychologist Jennifer Mills

3. Moving to “AZERTY”

“Keyboards touch our everyday lives” but, heedless of innovations across the world, their layout remains the same. However, QWERTY was changed to AZERTY in France on 2 April 2019, based on an advanced algorithm that arranged the characters in an optimal way. Who led the project?

3. Dr Anna Maria Feit (Aalto University)

4. Bedbugs: timestamp

The bedbug certainly got its name after the invention of the bed, but it didn’t come with the bed. Bats were thought to be their first host 50-60 million years ago but bedbug species evolved around 50 million years earlier. They were here when dinosaurs were around. Who reported this?

4. Dr Steffen Roth (University Museum Bergen)

5. What let the dog in

“The covenant”. That’s how Konrad Lorenz described the dog-man relationship, but a study of 35,035 twin pairs reveals much more: genetics explains more than half of the variation in dog ownership. The choice of owning a dog is heavily influenced by one’s genetic make-up! Who did the study?

5. Molecular Epidemiologist Tove Fall (Uppsala University)

6. As the Moon shrinks

Just as a grape wrinkles as it shrinks down to a raisin, the Moon gets wrinkles as it shrinks. Unlike the grape skin, the Moon’s surface crust is brittle. It breaks as the Moon shrinks, forming “thrust faults”. Who evinced that these faults are still active and likely producing moonquakes today?

6. Thomas Watters (Smithsonian’s NASM)

7. E-tongue is better

Testing spicy foods is fraught with several problems. For instance, we can test only a few samples before our taste buds give out. Who found and proposed that an electronic tongue, or e-tongue, is more effective and accurate than sensitive human taste buds in taste-testing fiery foods?

7. Courtney Schlossareck (Washington State University)

8. Getting it over with

“Getting it over with” is what we do in the face of an unpleasant experience. This could be a strategy to avoid feelings of anxiety — “whether it’s the physical pain of tearing off Band-Aids, or the emotional burden of admitting guilt”. Who hit the idea while distinguishing between fear and anxiety?

8. Caltech researcher Bowen Fung

9. Variety of usage

Consumers might like variety, but not a product’s several usage contexts. The more a consumer uses a product for different purposes or in different situations, the more likely he or she will report being unsatisfied with the purchase. Who came across this “plot twist” in a series of tests?

9. Jordan Etkin & Aner Sela (in the Journal of Marketing Research)

QUIZ No. 904

1. Pristine nature? Perish the thought. Just think about clean water and pure air. Who said it?

– Dr Nicole Boivin
– Javier Perez-Capdevila
– William W. Murdoch

1. Dr Nicole Boivin

2. Who demonstrated that good liars can readily beat even the hard-to-beat fMRI technique?

– Dr Chun-Wei Hsu
– Marie-Louise von Franz
– Susan Gathercole

2. Dr Chun-Wei Hsu

3. Complex societies gave birth to big gods, not the other way around. Who suggested this?

– Harvey Whitehouse
– Charles Harrison McNutt
– Richard Borshay Lee

3. Harvey Whitehouse

4. Which Russian author said “I’m dying” in German (“Ich sterbe”) moments before he died?

– Fyodor Dostoevsky
– Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
– Mikhail Sholokhov

4. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

5. Who experimented with gum recipes always and invented the modern day “Bubble Gum”?

– Leigh Ann Tucker
– Ruth Graves Wakefield
– Walter E. Diemer

5. Walter E. Diemer