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Fake News Feels Less Immoral to Share When We've Seen It Before
People who repeatedly encounter a fake news item may feel less and less unethical about sharing it on social media, even when they don’t believe the information, research indicates.
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Caring for Loved Ones the Top Priority for People Worldwide
Evolutionary psychologists have focused much their research on the human pursuit of love and sex, but a global study shows that people’s strongest motivations lie elsewhere.
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NIA Funding Available for Behavioral Research on Alzheimer’s Disease
The National Institute on Aging (NIA) has announced funding for individual scientists using behavioral and social science research perspectives to address the challenges raised by Alzheimer’s disease and its related dementias (AD/ADRD).
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When A Listener Calls…
It's our first-ever listener questions episode! On this Short Wave, Andy from Grand Rapids, Michigan, asks why some people seek out scary experiences. We reached out to Ken Carter, a psychology professor at Oxford College of Emory University, for answers. Turns out, some of us may be more wired to crave the thrill.
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Scientists are using MRI scans to reveal the physical makeup of our thoughts and feelings
Who among us hasn't wished we could read someone else's mind, know exactly what they're thinking? Well that's impossible, of course, since our thoughts are, more than anything else, our own. Private, personal, unreachable. Or at least that's what we've always, well, thought. ... Advances in neuroscience have shown that, on a physical level, our thoughts are actually a vast network of neurons firing all across our brains. So if that brain activity could be identified and analyzed, could our thoughts be decoded? Could our minds be read? Well, a team of scientists at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh has spent more than a decade trying to do just that. ...
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In this angry and stressed-out time, research says we can learn to be kinder
You can become a kinder person. Even in this angry, stressed-out era. Yes, really. ... Among the warriors for civility — a.k.a. kindness — is Jamil Zaki, 39, a Stanford University psychology professor whose lifework is focused on helping us become our better selves. For the past three years, he has been developing the tools to foster what he calls a “kindness revolution.” I know that’s an oxymoron — revolutions are most associated with overthrowing despots and are often very unkind. But this is a different kind of insurrection, and he begins with a startling premise: Empathy is not unalterable. It can be cultivated, or tamped down.
