People often feel very strongly about certain foods. For example, it’s been noted that people either really love the herb cilantro, or they really hate it. Andrea _____ it. She won’t anything that contains cilantro as an ingredient. Even if it’s only a trace amount.

After loading all of the boxes and furniture into the fourteen-foot truck, Laura realized the contents of that truck _____ all of her material possessions.

Due to her deep love and respect for animals, Kimberly _____ eating any meat products or wearing clothes made from animal skins. She won’t even wear a leather belt.

It seems to me that the amount of sleep I get at night directly _____ to my mood the next day. For example, if I sleep six hours or more, I’m relatively happy. If I sleep less than six hours, well, let’s just say you should stay away from me!

When the baby at the next table spilled all of her food on the floor, Anthony couldn’t help but notice how the pureed bananas looked _____, and consequently he promptly lost his appetite.

After our eyes had become _____ to the dark, we noticed that the ceiling of the cave was covered with sleeping bats.

_____ our students to study harder is not enough. We must also motivate them to try new strategies and adjust their own approaches.

Whether a(n) _____ occurs in your dreams or in your waking life, many psychologists claim that both these kinds of experience should be seen as real and meaningful events.

By cleverly listing so many expensive wines on their wine lists, restaurants alter our _____ of prices. We are often more willing to pay a high price for a glass of wine, as long as it looks cheaper compared to others on the list.

After the public found out about her affair, the senator couldn’t even talk to reporters anymore without being _____ by annoying questions.

Since the populations of Europe experienced so many diseases in their history, the average European colonist in the 1600s had a greatly reduced ____ to illness. However, the people in the lands they colonized didn’t fare so well. For example, some historians estimate that up to 90 percent of most Native American tribes were killed by smallpox, a European disease.

Even in rich, developed countries like the United States, the overabundance of cheap, factory-processed food can leave you _____—that is, unless you learn about nutrition and make an effort to find farm-fresh, healthy foods.

It takes a lot of food for a vulture to reach _____. Often these birds eat so much that they can’t even fly.

Many people blame cars and airplanes for damaging the environment because of the amount of greenhouse gasses they produce. However, scientists claim that deforestation is the true _____ of global warming. The burning of rainforests releases more carbon dioxide than any other industry, and it also destroys the very plants that are capable of removing it from the air again.

During the middle years, humans experience a gradual decline in strength and stamina, as well as in the sharpness of their senses. But for most adults, health continues to be relatively good through the middle years. In fact, there is a marked decline in susceptibility to many acute conditions, such as infections and colds. However, middle-aged adults do experience an increase in chronic health problems, such as arthritis and heart disease.

At the turn of the century, fewer than 20 percent of American women were in the work force. By midcentury, the percentage had almost doubled, and by 1993, it had nearly tripled. During this time, the percentage of men in the workforce hardly changed. However, between 1960 and 1993, the percentage of men in the workforce declined from 89.2 to 77.3. During the same period of time, the percentage of married women working increased from 31.9 to 59.4. 

Most American women, when they exercise, do it to lose weight. In one study of 525 undergraduates who exercised regularly, all of the women failed to see themselves as underweight, even when measurements reported that they were. And they perceived themselves as overweight, even when they were not. Additionally, many of the women who considered themselves normal weight nonetheless desired to be thinner. Similarly, the men also had unrealistic perceptions of themselves. They most commonly exercised to gain weight, even when their body weight was evaluated as normal and healthy. The men in the study generally saw themselves as underweight, even when they were not. Most of them expressed the desire to be heavier, and the bulk they wanted, of course, was not fat but muscle.

“Taking all things together, how would you say things are these days—would you say you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?” When this question was first asked in a psychological survey in 1957, more than one person in three described themselves as being “very happy;” one in ten where “not too happy.” The remaining 54 percent thought they were “pretty happy.” But by 1972, only one in four people selected “very happy.” This has happened despite the tremendous growth in wealth between 1957 and 1972, and the rise in the standard of living.

Until the start of the twentieth century, European linguists were convinced that Western languages were superior to all others in terms of complexity, efficiency, and beauty. It was generally assumed that small-scale non-Western cultures, which are characterized by simpler technology, have equally simple languages. In short, people who didn’t have an extensive language were thought to have “primitive” minds resulting in a diminished ability for expressing abstract ideas. Since the early 1900s, however, anthropologists have revealed that Native American languages, as well as many other languages of pre-industrial cultures, express a wide variety of abstract ideas just as sophisticated as English.

On intelligence tests, women and men perform more or less equally. However, the overall size of a woman’s brain is 10 to 15 percent smaller. The regions of their brains dedicated to higher cognitive functions such as language are more densely packed with neurons—and women use more of them. When a man works, neurons turn on in highly specific areas. When women set their minds on similar tasks, cells light up all over the brain. Female brains respond more broadly to emotion too. According to neuro-imaging studies, the genders respond differently to emotions, especially sadness, which activates, or turns on, neurons in an area eight times larger in women than in men.

Certain mouth germs may endanger the heart. Streptococcus sanguis, the bacterium found in dental plaque, has been linked to the buildup of plaque in the blood vessels around the heart. Overall, individuals with gum disease are at increased risk of heart disease and stroke. Not only that, but statistical studies have shown that regular brushing, flossing, and dental visits can reduce this danger. Another common form of bacteria, Chlamydia pneumonia, found in respiratory infections, may also threaten the heart. Individuals with high levels of antibodies to this bacterium are more likely to suffer from heart-related problems. Researchers have reported that antibiotics, taken to treat common bacterial infections, may protect against first-time heart attacks. A national clinical trial to determine whether antibiotics can reduce the risk of a heart attack is under way.

With the increase of agriculture in medieval Europe, and the resulting rise of civilization, came the development of a class of laborers called peasants. Peasant farmers differed from Native American farmers, Polynesian fishing people, or East African herders. They did not work in isolated, self-sufficient communities. Instead, peasants depended heavily on business relationships with the other classes in their larger society. They exchanged their farm produce for the products and services from other kinds of specialized workers, like craftsmen and physicians. In addition, peasants were dependent on the rule of higher classes in political and religious ways. They were subject both to the laws and controls of the state and to the moral authority of an urban-based religious organization (the Christian church). Peasants usually made up a large percentage of the total population and provided for most of the dietary needs of the city dwellers.

Does a belief in a vengeful God keep a businessman honest when he’s doing his taxes? A child will sometimes refrain from antisocial behavior if she believes that she will be punished. In the absence of disciplining parents, adults often turn to spirits and gods. Of course, it is impossible to determine just how much supernatural beliefs control human behavior. Nor is it necessary for a tribal priestess to prove that “the gods,” for example, will punish a young man for disobeying his father. In another example, if a husband simply believes that a particular god will punish him for cheating on his wife, that belief itself may be enough to keep him faithful. This is certainly the case in Western religions (Judeo-Christian), which teach about atonement for one’s sins, Judgment Day, and Heaven and Hell. In small-scale societies, there are other equally effective forms of belief in the supernatural, such as ancestor worship and witchcraft, that control people’s behavior.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, evolutionism was not the only theory that tried to explain how differences between cultures develop. Another approach was diffusionism. Evolutionism assumed that humans are inherently creative, capable of evolving cultures in different parts of the world independently of one another. Diffusionists, on the other hand, believed the opposite. They believed that humans are inherently not very creative, that they were barely, if at all, capable of creating new cultures on their own. This led to yet another questionable belief that any given cultural practice essentially began a long time ago at one place and one time, in only one part of the world (or perhaps just a few parts) and then spread from that birthplace. Through a process of “diffusion” a cultural practice spread to other populations as people migrated and spread the original ideas. Their lack of faith in human creativity led them to a third belief about cultural change. Cultural change, they claimed, happens not through human innovation but through the borrowing of ideas from other cultures. And finally, some of the more extreme and bizarre beliefs held by diffusionists eventually led to the downfall of their philosophy. For example, Grafton Elliot Smith and W. J. Perry in England took the essentially valid concept of cultural diffusion too far by suggesting that everything found in the world could be traced back to the early Egyptians.