Thaindian News

Washington, April 20 (IANS) Some people celebrate a political candidate’s victory with a party — others do it vicariously by turning to online porn, says a US research.

The wife and husband team of psychologists Charlotte Markey and Patrick Markey of Rutgers and Villanova universities respectively, conducted the research, based on Google trends, popular on blogs as well as with wisecracks from the researchers’ friends.

Their study suggests vicarious winning in (US) elections yields a higher usage of internet porn, based on the trends of electoral wins in 2004, 2006, and 2008, the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour reports.

“Google trends is a way to get a snap shot of what people are really thinking about,” says Charlotte Markey, an associate professor of psychology at Rutgers, according to its statement.

“Thirty percent of all content on the internet is pornography. This sounds absurd for people who don’t go to these sites, but for a large part of the population, that’s what people are doing.”

“Research has shown testosterone levels fluctuate with whether or not one wins in a competition. Even if a man is sitting in a bar and his team wins, his testosterone levels will rise,” notes Markey.

While Google trends doesn’t specify gender, it is estimated that 90 percent of porn use is attributed to men.

The researchers chose to focus on US election cycles, studying each state and the District of Columbia the week before and the week after each election, because they could clearly document one winner and one loser at a national level.

“Having access to this technology can be useful for many disciplines, not just psychology,” Markey says.

“For a study like this, we could see where people were actually going online, perhaps something participants might not be willing to admit in person, on paper, or even to themselves.”

Her research has also revealed links between parents’ weight concerns and weight gain among kids; how spouses’ eating impacts one another; and most recently, how lesbian couples contribute to each other’s well-being.