Curiously Meta
Coltan Scrivnerās curiosity about morbid curiosity is ushering him to higher and higher realms. He wrote his PhD thesis on the subject and joined the at Aarhus University, Denmark. Scrivner defines morbid curiosity as āa motivation to seek out information about dangerous phenomenaā. You will find that definition in his 2021 study called .
The Morbid Curiosity Scale weighs up how much a person agrees or disagrees with 24 more or less morbid statements. Some of the statements are broad (āI think the supernatural is an interesting topicā). Some are narrow (āIf a head transplant was possible, I would want to watch the procedureā). Scrivner concluded that āmorbidly curious individuals were rebellious, socially curious, and low in animal reminder disgustā. Depending on your own levels of morbid curiosity, do Google the last term.
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Reader Minna Lyons alerted Feedback to Scrivnerās scrivenings. In a study called , Scrivner explains that āmorbidly curious participants were also more interested specifically [than other people] in morbid information about Coronavirusā.
Scrivner also teamed up with colleagues for a related 2020 study that Ā鶹“«Ć½ readers may recall: āPandemic practice: Horror fans and morbidly curious individuals are more psychologically resilient during the covid-19 pandemicā. The study includes this nugget: āAs predicted, fans of prepper genres (zombie, apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic, and alien-invasion) were significantly more prepared for the pandemicā¦ However, being a fan of prepper genres was unrelated to positive resilience.ā
And now, morbid curiosity has led Scrivner to go above it all, in a way. To go meta. A few months ago, he became .
What the $%&#!?
āResearchers do not know how parents respond to childrenās cursing or what effect parentsā responses have on children later in life.ā Morbid curiosity, and maybe other flavours of curiosity, drew Timothy Jay, Krista King and Tim Duncan to write those words in their study called . Appearing in the journal Sex Roles in 2006, the report examined the beliefs of 211 students at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.
The study caught most of those students at a moment poised between childhood and potential parenthood. Jay, King and Duncan say the findings confirm three widespread beliefs. First, that swearing is a common childhood problem. Second, that mothers play a more prominent curse-disciplinary role than fathers do (āmothers were remembered as more responsive than fathers to their childrenās cursingā).
And third, though some parents physically smack their swearing offspring, most often parents hit kids with a verbal response. The study reports at least two notable discoveries about punishment: āOur data are the first to document the prevalence of washing childrenās mouths with soap. College students have vivid memories of punishment; however 94% reported that they continue to curse.ā
Swearing has many impacts. Some are admirable and desirable, as one discovers (or is reminded of) in reading the recent study , published in the journal Lingua. In the paperās summary, these items read like advertising bullet points from Mother Nature, which perhaps they are:
ā¢ āSwearing produces a hypoalgesic effect, increasing pain tolerance and pain threshold, while reducing pain perception.ā
ā¢ āSwearing increases power and strength in physical activity tasks.ā
ā¢ āIt provides a uniquely powerful means of emotional expression, and of achieving both positive and negative interpersonal relations. It also potentially shapes persuasiveness/credibility of messages.ā
Like paper, like city
Reader Martin Whittle had a flatly brilliant insight on paper. He noted that, while length and width hog most of the publicās attention, paperās third dimension ā thickness ā gets slighted. Heeding Feedbackās call about the Neom ratio, Martin investigated.
This ratio is, of course, derived from the proportions of Neom, a planned Saudi Arabian city that is designed to be 170,000 metres long, but only 200 metres wide. We invited you to tell us about physical objects with that same ratio (1 October).
Martin writes: āI thought that maybe the long side of a sheet of paper divided by its thickness might be close to the Neom ratio. So I measured the thickness of my printer paper at 110 microns (0.11 mm) which agrees with a typical value given on . A4 paper has a , which is considerably in excess of the Neom value of 850. The length needed is 93.5 mm, so that the short side of a piece of B7 at 88.0 mm (aspect ratio 800) is the closest.ā
As previously reported, reader Jason Bradbury identified a Neomish guitar string (22 October). What else awaits discovery?
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