Quirkology [antikvár]

IntroductionWhat quirkology is, why it matters, and secret studies into the science of tea-making, the power of prayer, the personality of fruit, and the initiation of Mexican waves.I have long been fascinated by the quirky side of human behaviour.As a psychology undergraduate I stood for hours in London's King's Cross railway station looking for people who had just met their partners off a train. The moment they were locked in a passionate embrace, I would walk up to them, trigger a hidden stopwatch in my pocket, and ask, 'Excuse me, do you mind taking part in a psychology experiment? How many seconds have passed since I just said the words Excuse me . . . ?' My results revealed that people massively underestimate the passing of time when they are in love, or, as Einstein once said, 'Sit with a beautiful woman for an hour and it seems like a minute, sit on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour - that's relativity.'An interest in the more unusual aspects of psychology has continued throughout my career. I am not the first academic to be fascinated by this approach to examining behaviour. Each generation of scientists has produced a small number of researchers who have investigated the strange and unusual.