Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

Giving someone the silent treatment may not always be such a bad thing. It may actually be a good way to deal with someone who is acting like a jerk, a new study finds.

The research reveals there are benefits to cutting off conversation with a person who is being obnoxious: It's not as draining on your mental resources, you avoid conflict with someone offensive, and it's much simpler than getting into a heated discussion.

That's because the silent treatment can speak volumes, even when someone is not saying a word or limiting their conversation to short or one-syllable responses.

From a psychological standpoint, this brush-off technique is largely viewed in a negative light. It's considered a manipulative way to communicate dissatisfaction and a passive form of rejection.

But this new research has identified at least some situations when silence might  be golden: When people are strongly motivated to avoid social interaction with an undesirable person, giving the silent treatment may be as easy -- if not easier -- than a conversation.

The silent treatment is not always motivated by an intent to harm another person or punish their behavior, said study author Kristin Sommer, Ph.D, an associate professor of psychology at Baruch College, City University of New York. "It may be used as a way to offset feelings of fatigue or depletion associated with the expectation of an unpleasant interaction," she explained.

For this new study, published online in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, the researchers ran two different experiments involving 118 college students. In each study, they asked participants to either talk with or ignore another individual, who was in on the experiment and told to act in a highly likeable -- meaning polite, relaxed, and friendly -- or a highly unlikeable manner -- someone rude, prejudicial, and arrogant. 

After four minutes with the "nice guy" or "jerk," study participants had to complete a task that involved thought and self-control.

Researchers found that participants who  ignored an unlikable person or talked with someone likable did better on the task than those who were forced to converse with a jerk or snub a nice guy. Rebuffing a likable person and exchanging pleasantries with someone obnoxious both took a toll. It left participants feeling depleted and their performance suffered as a result.

"Our findings suggest that the silent treatment may be used as a strategy for conserving mental resources that would otherwise be exhausted by interacting with someone who is inherently aversive to be around," said Sommer.

These findings do not mean that you can now feel justified every time you give a cold shoulder to a spouse, family member, or best friend. The study only looked into its use as a short-term snub in a non-close relationship.

There is a greater potential for risks when using the silent treatment in close relationships.

"The use of the silent treatment may have save energy-saving benefits," Sommer explained, "but these benefits may come at a long-term cost to a relationship."

 Related:  

Why some people love the burn of hot chili peppers

Big sig? What your handwriting says about you

Nearly half of 3-D movie-goers feel sick

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

He's the man you fall asleep beside every night, and the first person you see every single morning. So why isn't your husband making a cameo in your actual dreams? And why, when he does show up, are you both dressed in elf costumes and bickering about adopting a cat?

How Do You Express Anger?

Chances are, there's an explanation for these nighttime curiosities--and understanding what dreams mean might actually make your relationship healthier. "The subconscious is going to produce whatever dream it feels is appropriate at the time," says Cindy Nodland, PhD, a Denver-based dream therapist. "If there's something we need to know or understand, we'll dream about it."

Typically, our significant others play a considerable role in dreams: A new study out of Germany estimates that romantic partners are present in at least 20 percent of nocturnal imaginings. But it isn't because we spend so much time with them during the day. Rather, Nodland explains, our dreams often represent unresolved problems and feelings--and we tend to have a lot of both where our relationship is concerned.

The Sleep Position For Sexier Dreams

To better understand your own dreams, Nodland recommends keeping a dream journal--preferably next to your bed--and taking note of a dream's key players, settings, events, and any associated feelings. "The most important piece is the feeling you have in the dream," she says. "Are you sad? Frightened? Jealous? That will often give you the biggest clue about what the message of the dream is."

Curious about what your latest head-trip is trying to tell you? We asked Nodland to decode five of the most common relationship-oriented dreams.
If you were cheating on him. "This could indicate that your husband or boyfriend isn't meeting all of your needs," Nodland says. "An affair in a dream could indicate a desire for more passion in the waking relationship."

Why Infidelity Is Increasing In Monogamous Relationships?

If you're having dinner together. "Eating together is a very good dream," Nodland says. "It can actually represent the sexual relationship. Food, after all, is a nurturing and fulfilling component of our lives, and "sitting down and sharing a meal is a very intimate thing to do." But if you're having recurring dreams about repetitive meals, "again and again at Taco Bell," ask yourself whether those bedroom exploits are getting stale.

If someone else is in his place. Let's say you're dressed in that elf costume, bickering with your husband in dreamland...except your "husband" appears to be your high school boyfriend. Huh? "You could still be dreaming about your current relationship," Nodland says. "It means your current situation relates somehow to that guy from the past." Interpret the dream by mulling what the two of them have in common.

If he died in your dreams. This nightmarish scenario shouldn't be taken literally, Nodland says. "This could actually be a fear of abandonment. Generally, if we dream someone dies, it is symbolic of some kind of other death. It could mean the relationship is dying, not the person."

The Health Benefits Of Thinking About Death

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

When searching for that dream girl or guy, height may be one of the qualities you put on your mental wish list. But is height a trait that people really care about when choosing a mate or is just a number?

A new study has found that people's height preferences mattered to both men and women and seemed to be reflected in their actual partner choices to some degree.

The effects observed for partner height preferences and actual mate characteristics were generally small, says study author Gert Stulp, a doctoral candidate in psychology at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

For this study, published in the journal PLoS One, Dutch researchers compared height differences found in real-life couples to the distribution patterns expected in random mating. They looked at self-reported height data collected from about 12,500 heterosexual couples in the UK, who were participating in a long-term health study of British families.

Among these 12,500 British parents, the men were taller than the women in more than 11,500 pairs. Women were taller than their mates in 511 couples, while 425 twosomes were the same height.

Previous studies have found that women generally prefer men somewhat taller than themselves while guys typically go for a shorter gal. This new research revealed that men were taller than their female partners in 92.5% of the actual pairings, which is more often than expected on the basis of chance.

Ladies also tend to look for a fellow who's not too much taller than they are, a preference that was also reflected in the results. The number of actual mates in which the guy was 10 or more inches taller than a gal occurred in nearly 14 percent of couples, or rarer than would be expected by chance.

And the number of couples in which the man was much shorter than the woman was less likely to occur than pairs in which the man is only slightly smaller than the woman. More of the British couples fell into a category in which a male was roughly 2 to 8 inches taller than a female.

Even if the link between height preferences and actual partners is not very strong, the findings suggest that in Western cultures we truly do size up a potential mate.

Two other trends held up in the real-life twosomes, but they also had weaker associations than findings that were previously reported in preference studies (where people were asked to indicate the importance of characteristics they'd like in a potential mate.): Shorter women and taller men were more likely to have greater height differences with their mate, while taller women and shorter men preferred smaller variations in height.

Preferring a certain height in the opposite sex may mean preferring the biologically 'best' partner, points out Stulp. Since somewhat taller men seem to be preferred by women, he suggests this may have something to do with the fact that taller men tend to be somewhat more healthy, wealthy, and educated than guys who are vertically challenged.

In height preference studies he's conducted, Stulp says it appears that women -- and not men -- are driving the desire for a taller partner. He explains that men don't care much or only slightly care if a woman is shorter than they are, but women really do prefer a taller mate.

Height is one factor that could spark physical attraction, but Stulp suggests that clearly other partner traits play a role in selecting a mate and may be much more important.

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

Getty Images stock

Gossip usually gets a bad rap, but a new study suggests it can do some good: It might discourage some of us from slacking off. 

The study reveals that the good form of gossip can protect a group from individuals looking for a free ride, which can be a good thing for co-workers on a project team, students in a study group, or parents serving on a school committee, to name a few.

We tend to think of gossip as the nasty rumors spread behind someone's back or what busybodies blabber about for lack of anything better to say. But it can be more than that, says study author Bianca Beersma, PhD, an associate professor in the department of work and organizational psychology at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. "Gossip is not merely a trivial activity, nor is it always detrimental to group functioning," says Beersma says. "It can serve neutral and even positive functions for groups."

In one experiment, published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 221 college students completed a questionnaire rating people's main motives for gossiping.

They found that exchanging and validating information was the most important reason to instigate gossip. Students also rated its negative influence as the least important reason to gossip, and its social enjoyment and group protection ranked second and third, respectively.

As a result, Beersma suggests that malicious gossip may be a relatively infrequent type, but its consequences may be disproportionately large -- such as when gossip is part of bullying someone for a long period of time. 

In another experiment, the same college students read a situation describing an employee who was not doing their fair share at work. Study participants were then told to imagine they ran into a friend or a co-worker at a bus stop after leaving their job and asked whether they would gossip about the annoying slacker at work.

Researchers found people were more likely to gossip about a co-worker who was slacking off to another colleague, and the main reason was to protect other group members from this norm-violating behavior. 

For example, it's always tempting for some individuals to slack off in a group project, contribute little, and let others do the work. But the study found that one of the motives to gossip was to warn other group members about someone who was looking for a free ride who could hurt the rest of the group's overall performance. 

"Our study clearly shows that there is more to gossip than just the malicious aspect," says Beersma. "We are in need of a more nuanced view of gossip to enable organizations to benefit from its positive aspects."

But when it comes to workplace gossip, Beersma says the biggest challenge for an organization and its employees is to distinguish between positive, group-protecting gossip and the malicious, self-interested kind. 

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

When looking for love, dating books and well-meaning friends may advise guys and gals to play hard-to-get. And now pretending not to be interested in a potential partner to increase your desirability is gaining some scientific support:  A new study suggests that if you want a serious relationship, it pays for men and women to be hard-to-get.

According to the research, one potential benefit of playing hard-to-get is attracting a higher-quality mate with the greatest level of commitment for a long-term relationship. 

In the study, published in the European Journal of Personality, psychology researchers ran four different experiments to determine how and why people play hard-to-get and if or when it works in attracting a mate.

In one test, they identified the ways people play hard-to-get and how often men and women use them. From a list of 58 strategies, nearly 500 American college students rated 'acting confident' and 'talking to others' as the two most commonly used methods of playing hard-to-get.

But there were slight differences in strategies between the sexes. When gals acted coy they tended 'not to call,' 'not to talk a lot,' and 'to stay busy,' more than guys did.

When guys wanted to appear less available, they used only three methods more than gals did including 'acting snooty or rude,' 'saying all the right things but not calling,' and 'treating others like s#@t.'

Not surprisingly to anyone who's been single, researchers found that women played hard-to-get more often than men did.

"Women derive more benefit from playing hard-to-get because it allows them to test men out and increase the demand men place on them," says study author Peter Jonason, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Western Sydney in Australia. 

"Because women have greater value in the biological mating market, they can afford to play hard-to-get more than men can," he explains. "Men who are too hard-to-get may miss out on a mating opportunity." 

A second experiment of nearly 300 U.S. college students identified the top two reasons for playing hard-to-get were to increase demand (to make a romantic partner want someone more) and to test a partner's willingness to commit (to gauge interest and keep up a mate's pursuit).

The study also found that for a committed romantic relationship, women preferred a man who was medium in availability (not too easy or too hard-to-get) while guys preferred a gal with low availability (harder to get).

For a hookup, the results suggest a different story: If you're a women looking for casual sex, it does not pay to be hard to get. But if you're a man looking for a casual fling, it pays to be impossible to get, says Jonason. 

And when it came to spending money and time on a potential romantic partner, 425 college students revealed that the less available a person is, the more a prospective mate is willing to invest time and money in him or her.

The researchers admit that since their study only looked at college students their results may not apply to other age groups of single people. But their findings indicate some of the games people play when dating.

"We all would want honesty in dating but this is never going to happen," says Jonason. "We are not overtly lying, but we're always trying to marry up."

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

As Jennifer Marr watched the movie “Closer,” a scene struck her: The character Larry pushes his lover, Anna, to disclose everything she had done behind his back. While visibly pained, Larry insists on learning everything. This behavior puzzled Marr; why are some people so motivated to find out if others are gossiping or backstabbing?

To understand this phenomenon, Marr and her colleagues conducted several experiments, which looked at people who are highly interested in learning about gossip and backstabbing behavior and how it affects others. Marr, an assistant professor of the Scheller College of Management at the Georgia Institute of Technology, discovered that the more that people seek out information about backstabbing, the more likely that others will dislike them.

In one study, she asked people to self-report how motivated they were to seek out gossip about themselves; they also answered questions about paranoia. Those with higher motivation to discover backstabbing also exhibited more paranoia, although Marr stresses that no one demonstrated signs of clinical paranoia. But those more interested in learning about gossip and backstabbing showed some creepy behaviors, such as listening in on other people’s conversations, following them, or reading private emails.

“What we’re finding is that people who have this motivation, who seek out this info about whether people have harmed them, they are more likely to entertain paranoid ideas,” Marr explains.

But this becomes an endless cycle—the more motivated people are to find out if someone harmed them, the more likely they are to be paranoid, and the more likely they are to continue to investigate whether someone is acting behind their backs. 

The researchers did not simply rely on self-reported data; they observed how people acted in groups. Prior to the experiment, the subjects rated themselves on how motivated they were to find out whether people gossiped about them. At the end of the observation period, the researchers asked individuals with whom they wanted to work. No one wanted to work with people who sought out gossip and backstabbing.

“What we found was that students who were higher in their motivation [to seek out people engaging in harm against them] were more rejected by their group,” Marr explains. “What we are seeing is that even though this is a motivation that someone has, others in their group are aware of it and they can tell who is like that and it makes them want to exclude that person.”

While people who seek out gossip might be more direct and certain in life, this behavior evokes anger in others.

“Their paranoid behavior violates norms of trust … and this violation triggers feelings of anger toward [them]. It is this anger that leads to social rejection,” Marr says. 

The paper appears in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. 

More from The Body Odd:

Like, Californians totally do have accents

Too soon? Study reveals timeline for joking about tragedies

Swimming in her sleep? How the Idaho woman did it

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

Getty Images, EPA, Getty Images

Look at all those sexy immune systems!

By Stephanie Pappas
LiveScience

Women may drool over George Clooney and Brad Pitt, but their lust may be more for these macho guys' immune systems than their pretty faces and chiseled abs, new research suggests.

Men with high levels of the sex hormone testosterone are seen as more hunky — and these same men have stronger immune responses, researchers report Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. The findings suggest that women may be attracted to manly facial types because the macho look signals good health.

Researchers led by Fhionna Moore of Abertay University in the United Kingdom recruited 74 Latvian men in their early 20s to give blood samples right before and one month after their first dose of the Hepatitis B vaccine. The vaccine triggers the immune system to create antibodies against the virus. The researchers measured these levels of antibodies as well as testosterone levels and levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

Next, 94 Latvian women, also in their early 20s, rated photographs of each man on a 10-point scale of attractiveness. The researchers then looked for links between the immune response as measured by Hepatitis B antibodies, hormone levels and attractiveness.

They found that high testosterone correlated with both sexy faces and a strong immune response. Men with the strongest immune responses were rated as better looking than those with weak immune responses. The link between testosterone and hotness was strongest in men with low levels of the stress hormone cortisol, suggesting that stress might take a toll on the immune system, and thus women's ratings of attractiveness.

While much research has hinted at a relationship between testosterone and the immune system, this study is the first to directly link women's opinions of a man's looks with the strength of his immune system. Researchers next hope to tease out whether the results hold across cultures and across different age ranges.

More from LiveScience:

• 5 Myths About the Male Body
• 10 Surprising Sex Statistics
• Busted! 6 Gender Myths in the Bedroom & Beyond 

More from The Body Odd:

• Men's deep voices help women remember 
• Moving in sync helps people think alike
• How to spot a liar in 20 seconds flat

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

Pssst! Guys, if you want that hottie sitting beside you to remember your stunning good looks long after you’ve left, lower the pitch of your voice when you turn on the charm.

Lower voices seem to stick better in women’s memories, scientists now say. In a study published in this month’s Memory & Cognition, British researchers reported that women were more likely to remember something if they heard it from a man with a low voice than one with a higher pitch.

The theory is that women are hard-wired to pay better attention to a potentially superior mate.

“The reason that male voice pitch should be important is that the pitch of the voice gives an indication of how much testosterone the man has,” said the study’s lead author, Kevin Allan, a lecturer in psychology at the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom. “Lots of testosterone produces pronounced masculine features, in the voice and face most notably.”

Studies have shown that testosterone impacts the immune system, Allan said. “So, if a man has a rugged masculine face and voice then it implies that he has a good immune system and therefore good health,” he explained.

And that’s the payoff, in evolutionary terms: healthy daddies are more likely to make healthy babies.

To look at the impact of male voice pitch on women’s memories, Allan and his colleagues rounded up 45 young women whose average age was 21.

The women were shown an image of an object while listening to a voice read the name of the object. The male voices were manipulated to sound either high or low pitched.

Later on, the women were shown a picture of the object they’d looked at earlier, along with a picture that was similar, but slightly different -- a plain blue fish versus the same blue fish with a yellow blotch.

When the researchers tallied up the number of times each woman picked the right picture, they discovered that the women were more likely to remember if they’d initially seen the object while a low pitched male voice was naming it.

So, does it work the other way round?

Allan says not. “We did collect data from men who were listening to women’s voices that were high and low in pitch,” he explained. “We found no effect on the men’s memory at all. Our conclusion about the absence of the effect in men’s memory is that men are picking partners based purely on physical characteristics.” 

Related:

• Women think deep voiced-dudes are more likely to cheat, study shows 
• 'Baby fever' is a real thing -- and guys get it, too
• Women's 'gaydar' improves during ovulation

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

Susan Walsh / AP

Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., waits for an elevator near his office on Capitol Hill in Washington on Thursday.

The flashes -- both the news and nether region variety -- seem to be popping up everywhere lately: Brett Favre allegedly aired it out and Kanye West snapped south of the border.

After a lewd photo was sent from Rep. Anthony Weiner's Twitter account, the aptly dubbed “Weinergate” saga has exposed a truly touchy question for the Tech Age: Why are some dudes compelled to take cell phone pics of their private parts then share those images -- via texts or tweets -- with the ladies?

It’s time to apply some psychological expertise -- let’s call it “junk” science -- to this sexting obsession among some fellas.

“The simplest theory for the behavior,” said Marta Meana, president of the Society for Sex Therapy and Research, “is that these men think the photos will serve to arouse the woman – because they, themselves, would find it arousing if that woman sent such a photo to them.”

Here’s the rub: that theory applies only to men who send down-and-dirty close-ups to women they know. If a sexter sends an unsolicited, digital portrait of his genitals to a woman he doesn’t know, “it is likely that the act … is arousing to the sender -- sub-clinical or clinical exhibitionism,” said Meana, also a psychology professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “The primary intent … is to arouse themselves.”

That scenario seems fit the three celebrities mentioned above -- if they, in fact, did it. (Update: OK, now we know that Weiner did, in fact, do it.)

Favre, the retired quarterback, was fined $50,000 by the NFL late last year for “failing to cooperate” with a league probe into whether he sent x-rated snaps to former NY Jets employee Jenn Sterger. He has not owned up to what may have been the final sack shot of his career. Sterger said she never met Favre.

West, before fame, gifted some of his female MySpace friends with an unsolicited crotch shot which hit the Internet last year. West subsequently admitted to a radio station that the appendage image was his groin.

And on May 27, a post from New York Congressman Anthony Weiner’s Twitter account linked to an image of a man wearing two things -- gray boxer shorts and an erect penis. That picture was sent to one of Weiner’s Twitter followers -- a 21-year-old college student in Seattle, who Weiner said he didn’t know. The U.S. House member denied posting the photo, but noted he couldn’t say “with certitude” the pic was not of his own privates. Weiner’s spokesman initially said the Congressman’s Twitter account had been hacked.

From ballers to rappers to -- maybe -- lawmakers, Little Willy, Willy won’t stay home.

If nothing else, the latest battle of the bulge put Weiner’s long-time pal Jon Stewart in an awkward place. The tweeted image plus Weiner’s job plus – of course – his ironic name – proved too much for “The Daily Show” not to urge “You’ve got to come cleaner, Weiner” in this hilarious Jon Stewart clip.

Here’s the hard truth, guys: Most women are not turned on by video or digital glimpses of your junk, Meana said.

Empirical literature shows clear differences in what lights the passions of males and females. While many dudes are visual animals focused on sexual anatomy, “women’s subjective arousal appears to be more driven by relationship dynamics, expressions of desire, narrative expositions of that desire,” Meana said.

But some ladies -- especially those already in a physical relationship with the sender -- are into sexting. Still, it’s an erotic fine line.

“Sending such a photo after a sexless first date is probably a misstep -- it skips too many courtship stages,” Meana added.  “Sending such a photo after you have had hot sex could be sexy to some women.”

Related:

• Breitbart site publishes photos of shirtless man it claims is Weiner
• Your name impacts how others judge you
• NY Rep. Weiner: Lewd photo 'was of me, I sent it'

Bill Briggs is a frequent contributor to msnbc.com and author of “The Third Miracle.” 

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.