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Forget the cheese straws or veggies and dip this Thanksgiving. New research suggests that if you really want your Thanksgiving dinner crowd to be nice to each other, you may just want to show them pictures of the turkey before you’ve popped it in the oven.
According to a new study, meat doesn’t just give us strength or the occasional bit of indigestion, it actually makes us less aggressive.
Curious as to whether images of meat would trigger our inner caveman aggression (the drive that facilitated the ability of our ancestors to hunt and survive), researchers at McGill University in Montreal divided 82 male undergrads into three groups in order to participate in what they were told was a “multitasking” experiment.
Each group was asked to sort through various pictures – either pictures of raw meat, guns or geometric shapes – while they evaluated another participant reciting a script. Whenever the person reading “forgot” their lines (researchers asked the reader to do this six times), students would administer a dummy “tone blast” that ranged from “barely noticeable” to “very painful.”
As it turned out, people were less likely to zap their associates when they saw pictures of raw meat.
“The meat group was significantly less aggressive,” says psychology researcher Frank Kachanoff. “The tone blasts they chose were less painful than participants in the geometric shape group.” The findings were presented at a recent symposium.
Kachanoff says he believes there’s a logical reason why pictures of raw meat triggered less aggression.
“I only showed pictures of meat ready to cook, not pictures of an animal,” he says. “The main aggression of killing the animal would have already been done. In my next experiment, I’d like to see if images of live animals would prime aggression.” The results would likely be the same if the participants were looking at cooked meat, Kachanoff says.
Daniel Printz, a 42-year-old estate planning lawyer (and meat eater) from San Diego says looking at raw meat certainly doesn’t make him feel aggressive.
For thousands of years, we saw raw meat every day and we saw it as a sign of accomplishment in that we’d brought something down during the hunt,” Printz says. “But nowadays, it simply involves a butcher shop. I don’t feel that looking at meat in any form makes me aggressive. If it’s raw meat, I feel a little bit uneasy. It’s disquieting.”
Cooked meat, on the other hand, tends to make him “happy.”
Ah, but what about those agitating geometric shapes?
Even though Kachanoff thought of the shapes were a neutral image,“it’s always possible that the people in the geometric shape group didn’t like geometric shapes.” The people shown the guns had the same reaction as the geometric group.
So, if you want to avoid family arguments before the big dinner, skip the triangle-fold napkins and let your guests watch the cooking bird via a turkey cam.
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Leave a Comment:
nonsense.
Good Grief I sure hope nobody actually got paid for that piece of totally useless crap study.
I know. Why would you show guests pictures of the turkey, when it's right there on the table?
My thoughts exactly! How much money was wasted on this useless study. And printing it as news? Aren't there thousands of people in Haiti suffering and dying from cholera? Anything other than this crap. Time I'll never get back. I'm now dumber for having read it.
What a load of...
crap, Lola3. I think the word you were looking for is crap, and I agree! Unbelievably stupid useless reporting. Totally unimpressed. How about doing some actual human interest stories???
This made that bridge on Mars article seem FASCINATING.
I'm just laughing at the look I imagine would be on my brother's face if I showed him a picture of a raw turkey. He'd raise one eyebrow as if to say, "How much wine have you had already? And why didn't you show me a picture of that?"
Happy Thanksgiving all. And if your partake...Happy Black Friday! Make it a safe one.
That's crap....anyone come near my food ill snap at them, especially my meat. And if i'm not the first one getting food i'm not in a good mood....as for this guys test...how much time did they take looking at the traits of the people tested? Maybe one person was not a meat fan, or didn't leave a very active lifestyle....could go on for days. I think a more active person who is more aware of what the body needs and what certain food does would be more likely to press the button when shown meat than a person who sits around, plays video games, has a desk job and most likely was not an athlete of some sort. Survival is competitive, so someone that is taught to compete is less likely to develop certain survival instincts than an athlete. But thats just me...
82 people in this study? What a sample size. Sounds like an undergraduate research project that was never supposed to get beyond their intro level bio lab. There's got to be some better news out there.
My God....the person who wrote this gem needs to be fired, and then re-fired just to make sure. How can meat make you feel less aggressive? Hmmmm...I thought that over 10,000 years of evolution that the smell of blood makes carnivors and mammals agressive in nature. Ya know, enough to KILL.
You are fired, dude.
Idiots studying idiots.
Jeez, how much money was spent on this? whatever the amount....it was too much.
I work 60 plus hrs. a week racking my brain on how to best manage my projects. I would love the chance to interview with the people who funded this.
Aw...I'm hungry!
Meat or turkey?? would more likely agree with turkey, do not agree with meat in general. However, these studies are quacked!! more holes in them than swiss cheese..
It makes people nicer??? Well, then whip out your meat!
I'm putting my money on Xanex!!
Fiona says, if something looks too good to be true, it's best to shoot it, just in case. This so-called study fits in there somewhere. Wow, all those years in college learning correct scientific method, and THIS gets published. Phew. I like your comments, wewhodream and wethepeople. And now that I think about it, I AM hungry for crispy turkey skin or rare prime rib right now.....sigh
How about studying the effect of a piece of meat cut into geometric shapes? That ought to worth a PhD.
Hahaha, sure, why not?
I think he left out the part to do with hunger and starvation. When your meat is suddenly like gold. I wonder how nice the Donner party was near the end??
My wife says she feels happy looking at my meat. Maybe there's something to this. Let's all take a look at someone's meat and report back here in 24 hours. Then some genius can do a story on our results.
Did they run out of news?
I wonder when our Government is going to ban turkeys because they can cause health problems.
That should go in the book of totally useless crap!
Huh?!
This topic is random and convoluted. Maybe the study participants looking at pictures of raw meat were too distracted to care about the script reader's mistakes. I know that if I was browsing pictures of raw meat, I'd think, "What the heck?!" Raw meat can look repulsive to many people. Any kind of food imagery is more stimulating than shapes or guns (unless you're a gun afficionado), so obviously you're less inclined to "snap" at a script reader. I doubt it has anything to do with aggression.
They obviously haven't been around a holiday dinner with vegans invited. Show them meat??
egads. I have caveman psychology garbage.
in case noone noticed the name of this web page is "body odd" . it is just a fun little page about all the weird and wacky things pertaining to our bodies and minds. so stop dissing or stop reading!!! lighten up!!!!
As a total carnivore it is certainly a fact that if I see meat I will be very happy and if I were to see guns I very well might become agressive. This was not really a study shame they did not do a needfull study instead.
Keep smiling eat meat!
I just had a second thought: If they would have tested raw bloody steak as opposed to turkey I am certain the results would have been different. The turkey probably brought out a feeling of holiday spirit whereas a bloody piece of meat would have brought out other feelings.
Think if you were to take meat away from a meat eater the person would become agressive. Take away vegetables and it would cause nada.
Thanks for reading this comment.
All the best, enjoy your food.