Psychology
- Animals
Bonobos, much like humans, show commitment to completing a joint task
Experiments with bonobos suggest that humans aren’t the only ones who can feel a sense of mutual responsibility toward other members of their species.
- Neuroscience
Lonely brains crave people like hungry brains crave food
After hours of isolation, dopamine-producing cells in the brain fire up in response to pictures of humans, showing our social side runs deep.
- Psychology
‘Deaths of despair’ are rising. It’s time to define despair
A sense of defeat, not mental ailments, may be derailing the lives of less-educated people in the United States.
- Science & Society
‘The Origins of You’ explores how kids develop into their adult selves
A new book describes the interplay of nature and nurture as children, at least in Western societies, grow up.
- Humans
Ancient sculptures hint at universal facial expressions across cultures
Interpreting the emotions carved onto sculptures from long ago offers a new way to study how humans perceive facial expressions.
- Psychology
Why do we miss the rituals put on hold by the COVID-19 pandemic?
Even solitary rituals bind us to our groups and help calm anxieties. What happens when those traditions are upended?
- Science & Society
Interfaith soccer teams eased Muslim-Christian tensions — to a point
Soccer bonded Christian and Muslim teammates in Iraq, but that camaraderie didn’t change attitudes.
- Psychology
Monkeys may share a key grammar-related skill with humans
A contested study suggests the ability to embed sequences within other sequences, a skill called recursion and crucial to grammar, has ancient roots.
- Neuroscience
How coronavirus stress may scramble our brains
The pandemic has made clear thinking a real struggle. But researchers say knowing how stress affects the brain can help people cope.
- Psychology
A simple exercise on belonging helps black college students years later
Black college freshmen who did a one-hour training on belonging reported higher professional and personal satisfaction years later.
- Humans
In some languages, love and pity get rolled into the same word
By studying semantic ties among words used to describe feelings in over 2,000 languages, researchers turned up cultural differences.
- Humans
The medieval Catholic Church may have helped spark Western individualism
Early Catholic Church decrees transformed families and may help explain why Western societies today tend to be individualistic and nonconformist.
