When searching for psychology research, I inevitably come across a study by ‘Lester D’, who is apparently a psychologist in an obscure college in New Jersey who seems to be interested in everything.

Mostly, the things you’ve never thought of, and probably never even thought of thinking of, and perhaps don’t even have the capacity to conceptualise.

To be fair, he has a clear interest in suicide research and does a great deal of important work in this, and other areas, but what consistently amazes me are the diverse topics he investigates.

For example, he has discovered that:

Mormons view the afterlife as less pleasant than Jews. On average, there is no difference in the height from which men and women jump to their deaths. Wives of coast guards and no more likely than wives of firemen to be depressed following a family move, but are more likely to be taking antidepressants. There is no relation between religiosity and death anxiety in Kuwait. Both anxiety about computers and internet skills affect how likely you are to buy a textbook online. Among organ donors, homicide victims were more likely to have blood types O and B. Suicides showed no differences. Macintosh users have significantly greater anxiety about computers than PC users.

By my reckoning, he has published close to 1,500 scientific articles in everything from the most prestigious journals to the most obscure printings.

‘Lester D’ you are a little-known legend. Like the Elvis Costello of the mind.



UPDATE: Thanks to @carlacasilli who managed to track down Lester D online. You can see a picture of David Lester half way down this page. He has two PhDs and looks like, well, a legend of course.

Link to ‘Lester D’ publication list on PubMed.