Self-regulation and sexual restraint: dispositionally and temporarily poor self-regulatory abilities contribute to failures at restraining sexual behavior

Nonsexual deficiencies in self-control may contribute to inappropriate or objectionable sexual behaviors, as shown by survey questionnaires, autobiographical narratives, and experimental manipulations. People with low overall trait self-control and/or whose self-control strength had been depleted by recent, nonsexual acts were less likely than other people to stifle inappropriate sexual thoughts and to resist the temptation to engage in sexual activities with someone other than their primary relationship partner. They also engaged in more extensive sexual activity in the laboratory with their dating partner and they reported more undercontrolled or impulsive sexual behavior generally. Furthermore, there was some evidence that the effects of diminished self-control were strongest among those with the strongest sexual desires (men and sexually unrestricted individuals) and among couples with less sexual experience.     

What's so funny about not having money? The effects of power on laughter

Two studies tested the hypothesis that occupying a position of low power increases the likelihood of laughter, presumably as a means of gaining friends and supporters. In Study 1, participants laughed more at an interviewer's jokes when the interviewer controlled their cash rewards than in the absence of monetary contingencies. Study 2 found that low-power participants (manipulated again by expecting that someone else would decide their cash rewards) laughed more than high-power participants even when they were alone. Low power also increased laughing at a fellow low-power coworker. These findings suggest that low power motivates interest in making friends and hence increases behaviors that promote social bonding.     

Dreaming of spiders: Abuse,economics, and theological insecurity in pastoral counseling

... This hope in no hope is clearly demonstrated in the following dream of a young adult woman who had been severely hurt emotionally in her relationships in her family of origin and again in her failing marriage. In this dream, which was presented in a group and dealt with mainly by my co-therapist, the woman placed herself in a glass room like a shower, with the handle to the room's only door on the outside. There was a crack in the glass of one of the room's corners, and through this crack came some spiders. She was lying on the floor and the spiders began to crawl over her. Though she screamed for help, no one would come to open the door. As one approach (among many) to the interpretation of this dream my colleague utilized the manipulation of the dream symbols to ask her to imagine that the spiders had changed into kittens. She resisted this suggestion intensely, saying that she could not allow such an imaginary change. Besides, the spiders weren't too bad to endure, for if she changed the spiders into kittens and the kittens turned out to be evil, then she would be at her rope's end. She preferred to live with her perspective that the world is hostile rather than risk the possibility of another hope being shattered. (Jordan, 1986, pp. 98–99)