Humans are one of the most cooperative species on the planet.
However, a key problem when trying to understand the evolution of cooperation has been the issue of cheaters. Individuals in a social group, whether that group is composed of bacteria, cichlids, chimpanzees, or people, often benefit when cooperating with others who reciprocate the ...
Date Posted: August 17, 2012
GOSpending time living abroad can set the creative juices flowing. But it doesn't work for everyone and a new study helps explain why. To extract maximum benefit from time in a foreign land, what's needed is a "bicultural" perspective - the ability to ...
Aug 17
GOResearchers from UCL Anthropology used the lost letter technique to measure altruism across 20 London neighbourhoods by dropping 300 letters on the pavement and recording whether they arrived at their destination. The stamped letters were addressed ...
Aug 17
GOConsider two questions. First: Who are you? What makes you different from your peers, in terms of the things you buy, the clothes you wear, and the car you drive (or refuse to)? What makes you unique in terms of your basic psychological ...
Aug 16
GOIt may not seem fair, but what was created as habit years and years ago, still remains within the psyche today. Insisting on dessert after every meal, running late to work most days, drinking coffee in the morning, sitting in traffic on the ...
Aug 16
GOWhen charity recipients seem to belong to a cohesive group, donors will make stronger judgments about the victims, which leads to greater concern and increased donations if these judgments are positive, according to a new study in the Journal of ...
Aug 16
GOWith new national anti-bullying ads urging parents to teach their kids to speak up if they witness bullying, one researcher has found that in humans' evolutionary past at least, helping the victim of a bully hastened our species' movement toward a ...
Aug 15
GOA young autistic boy has found his outlet in making science videos. Jordan Hilkowitz was diagnosed with autism when he was just 18 months old, he didn’t begin to speak until he was 5. His mother Stacey remembers the heartbreak she experienced as ...
Aug 15
GOGirls with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) – and their families – often look forward to the likely decline in visible symptoms such as fidgety or disruptive behavior as they mature into young women.
However, new findings from ...
Aug 15
GOMajor depression or chronic stress can cause the loss of brain volume, a condition that contributes to both emotional and cognitive impairment. Now a team of researchers led by Yale scientists has discovered one reason why this occurs — a single ...
Aug 14
GO"D" and I are planning our wedding next year, but we have a serious problem: "D" makes a lot of critical comments about things I do or say. She insists she doesn’t intend to be critical, or she'll explain that she's trying to give me important ...
Aug 14
GOResearchers have long known that people are very frequently overconfident – that they tend to believe they are more physically talented, socially adept, and skilled at their job than they actually are. For example, 94% of college professors think ...
Aug 14
GO THE Internet is a rabbit hole of distraction. It’s easy to wind up knee-deep in paparazzi photos of Beyonce’s new baby when you intended only to answer a few e-mails.
But last week, I had a different experience. Stressed out, on a ...
Aug 13
GOBaseball Hall of Famer Yogi Berra is credited with saying that “90 percent of the game is half mental.” Over the years, the line has been appropriated beyond the world of baseball to explain the importance of factors like focus and motivation to ...
Aug 13
GOPost-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) develops in individuals who experience highly traumatizing situations such as terrorist attacks and car accidents, but symptoms can also come about after normal life events -- including childbirth. A Tel Aviv ...
Aug 13
GOIf people really understood their chances of winning the lottery, they would never buy a ticket.
Yet tickets are bought so frequently that well-run lotteries are, for the organisers, virtually a license to print money.
All lotteries exploit a ...
Aug 11
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New evidence shows the calming power of reminiscing about happy times
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