How to make wise decisions...

It was hard to think of a title for this one. According to this report people make better decisions when they have a full bladder. The authors suggest drinking a bottle of water (kill-joys...) before making a decision about an expensive purchase. Even thinking about urination has the same effect. Perhaps, they should leave a tap running in the Dail chamber.

Risk Taking and Attractiveness in Chess

New IZA Working Paper

Anna Dreber Almenberg, Christer Gerdes, Patrik Gränsmark

Beauty Queens and Battling Knights: Risk Taking and Attractiveness in Chess

Abstract:
We explore the relationship between attractiveness and risk taking in chess. We use a large international panel dataset on chess competitions which includes a control for the players' skill in chess. This data is combined with results from a survey on an online labor market where participants were asked to rate the photos of 626 expert chess players according to attractiveness. Our results suggest that male chess players choose significantly riskier strategies when playing against an attractive female opponent, even though this does not improve their performance. Women's strategies are not affected by the attractiveness of the opponent.

http://ftp.iza.org/dp5314.pdf