Month: June 2015

Study Alert: The Positive Psychology of Cat Content

Mappalicious - Cat ContentI knew it! I kneeeeew it!!! If millions and millions of people do something, there must be a good reason. Even if those people don’t know exactly why they are doing it.

Do you fancy watching cat content on the Internet? I do. Well, I have two real cats myself, but still Iindulge in a feline YouTube spree at least once a week. Makes me smile, makes me happy. Love it…

Researchers at Indiana University now surveyed some 7.000 people on their behavior of watching cat content online. Here’s what they found (excerpts taken from the study report on the University’s homepage):

  • They were more energetic and felt more positive after watching cat-related online media than before.
  • They had fewer negative emotions, such as anxiety, annoyance and sadness, after watching cat-related online media than before.
  • They often view internet cats at work or during studying.
  • The pleasure they got from watching cat videos outweighed any guilt they felt about procrastinating.

That’s it! Cat content = happiness. For those that now go “Duh…” because they already knew: At least, now we have science on our side…

Study Alert: The Smell of Happiness 

If you are somewhat like me, you don’t really fancy smelling other people’s sweat. But if – for whatever reason – life puts you in a situation where you have to: Make sure it’s the sweat of happy people. Why?

Because it just might make you happy (at least: happier), too. A recent study titled A Sniff of Happiness finds that people who are exposed to the body odors of happy people tend to show increasing signs of happiness themselves, e.g., they smile more compared to the time before that “exposure”.

In the words of the researchers:

We observed that exposure to body odor collected from senders of chemosignals in a happy state induced a facial expression and perceptual-processing style indicative of happiness in the receivers of those signals. Our findings suggest that not only negative affect but also a positive state (happiness) can be transferred by means of odors.

So if you are a happy person: Please throw away that antiperspirant. Make the world a more joyful place… 😉