Aesthetics

• Expensive wine is for suckers: 

Economics

• An interesting study on how rich people can be jerks.

Ethics

• A new movie will come out about the Stanford Prison Experiment: 

Family

• In two-sibling families, adolescents who believed their parents favored their sibling were more likely to engage in delinquent behavior and substance abuse. (h/t Useful Science)

Friendship

Guns

• Gun owners less likely to use firearms as self-defense.

Health

• Hawaii becomes the first state to raise the smoking age to 21.

Politics

• People living in liberal democracies tend to be happier regardless of political affiliation, although conservatives report higher subjective well being overall. (h/t Useful Science)

Pornography

• A running idea is that female porn actors are “damaged goods,” meaning that they get into porn because of low self-esteem issues, abused as children, have psychological problems, use drugs more than typical women.  A study shows that they were more likely to identify as bisexual, first had sex at an earlier age, had more sexual partners, were more concerned about contracting a sexually transmitted disease (STD), and enjoyed sex more.  There were no differences regarding child abuse than those women who did not enter porn. In terms of psychological characteristics, porn actresses had higher levels of self-esteem, positive feelings, social support, sexual satisfaction, and spirituality compared to the matched group. Last, female performers were more likely to have ever used 10 different types of drugs compared to the comparison group. These findings did not provide support for the damaged goods hypothesis.

Race

• More about the Rachel Dolezal debate.  This article discusses why transgender makes sense but not transrace.  However, philosopher Christine Overall argues that one can be transracial.
• The suicide rate of black children is on the rise.
• An interesting blog about the philosophy of race.
• A tool to recognize microaggressions.

Religion

• From Daniel Dennett, the clergy project discusses those who are current or former religious professionals without supernatural beliefs.

Sexuality

• Five Sex Ed Programs that go beyond talking about reproduction.
• There’s no evidence that children of same-sex couples are negatively impacted.