Audio: Hear Richard Wiseman discuss this feature as part of SciPod, New Scientist's weekly podcast.
Did you know that fruit and vegetables have personalities? According to research carried out by Robert Sommer at the University of California, Davis, in 1988, lemons are seen as dislikable, onions are stupid, and mushrooms are social climbers.
Sommer is not alone in his fascination with the stranger corners of the human mind. Each generation, a handful of psychologists have explored where their mainstream colleagues fear to tread. One team investigated whether local suicide rates are related to the amount of country music played on radio. Another made a beauty map of the UK by noting the number of good-looking people walking city streets (London was rated the best, Aberdeen the worst, since you ask).
I have called this discipline "quirkology" - the use of scientific methods to study quirky human behaviour, or ...
To continue reading this article, subscribe to receive access to all of newscientist.com, including 20 years of archive content.