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Money and Morality: Lack of Resources May Lead to Harsher Moral Judgments
Material resources, specifically income, have a sustaining impact on our lives. They dictate fundamental aspects of life, like where we live, and more peripheral aspects, such as whether we can go to the office happy hour. But research reveals that material resources can also influence how we judge other people. The findings, published in Psychological Science, suggest that individuals with lower incomes are more likely to issue harsher judgments of harmful behavior, like lying or physically attacking someone. Global factors, like the economy, as well as individual factors, such as mood, influence this effect.
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Trust Tramples Turnover
Even when you have to break a promise or obligation, you’re more apt to keep your star players if they perceive you as fair and honest, a study suggests.
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Children’s Language Advantage
Why are children more successful at learning a new language compared to adults? Elissa Newport has devoted her career to studying human language acquisition, including the learning differences between children and adults. In her “less-is-more” hypothesis, she posits that children are better able than adults to learn languages because, paradoxically, they have fewer cognitive resources available to them.
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Got a Dollar? You May Be Happier if You Spend it on Someone Else
A boost to income can increase happiness to a certain degree, but research suggests how you spend your money may be equally important as the amount you have.
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For Black Professional Men, It’s Who You Are, Not Who You Know
President Obama last week announced a new public-private initiative aimed at giving young minority men better opportunities — as long as they “work hard” and “take responsibility.” Indeed, those qualities tend to be more critical to the success of African American men than they are for other groups, who appear better able to leverage social and professional contacts to get ahead. Studies have shown that social capital — defined as one’s professional network — is a big factor in career advancement. But those studies focused largely on Caucasians. As a recent study shows, networking seems to be less of a factor in Black men's career accomplishments than are education and motivation.
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The Nature of Culture
Douglas Medin has explored scientific reasoning in children and adults across cultures, as well as across urban versus rural populations. His research also has focused on what is known as commons behavior. This line of inquiry asks why certain populations do or don’t destroy a shared environment to fulfill selfish needs. His research teams have studied indigenous Mayan populations and found that they share natural resources without draining them, largely because they develop a rich, spiritual understanding of forest ecology. Medin’s work has helped move psychological science beyond laboratory models to a broader focus on how our cultural background influences our view of the world.