When people make choices, they must assess a host of variables. What is the risk? What is the payoff or cost? What disruption will the choice cause? What is the probable outcome?
Researchers have employed a host of techniques, from brain scans to personal...
Many children are willing to make personal sacrifices to punish wrongdoers — and even more so if they believe punishment will teach the transgressor a lesson, a new Yale study published Nov. 23 in the journal Nature Human Behaviour shows.
Philosophers and...
When people behave selfishly, they have a reliable ally to keep their self-image well-polished — their own memory.
When asked to recall how generous they were in the past, selfish people tend to remember being more benevolent than they actually were,...
People who had recently used psychedelics such as psilocybin report a sustained improvement in mood and feeling closer to others after the high has worn off, shows a new Yale study published the week of Jan. 20 in the journal Proceedings of the National...
Qualities such as patience or risk-taking are often thought of as product of an individual’s innate character. But a new Yale study of children from four countries suggests many behaviors may not be a product of who you are, but where you are.
“We tend to...
Building upon her hugely popular 2018 class and online Coursera course, Yale psychologist Laurie Santos is hosting a new 10-episode podcast, The Happiness Lab.
Santos explores some new takes on the science of what truly makes us happy and talks with some...
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are characterized by the inability of individuals to gauge the emotions and mental states of other people. However, if the lens is widened to include the behavior of people in general, those with ASD traits are as good or...
People whose identity is “fused” with that of a political leader are more likely to take extreme positions or commit violence on behalf of the leader, new studies by researchers at Yale and University of Oslo have found.
Followers of Donald Trump who have...
Exposure to violence does not change the ability to learn who is likely to do harm, but it does damage the ability to place trust in “good people,” psychologists at Yale and University of Oxford report April 26 in the journal Nature Communications.
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Ideology, not culture or even personal experience, seems to explain why men react more negatively than women to the #MeToo movement in both the U.S. and the comparatively progressive Norway, researchers at Yale and in Norway report in the journal Media...