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Is Generosity Contagious?
Pacific Standard: As we have seen again over the past week, tragedy can sometimes bring out the best in people, inspiring them to donate their time and money. But why do certain occasions become catalysts for compassion, while others fail to move us in any meaningful way? The severity of the disaster plays a major role, of course. But new researchfinds another factor is also crucial: whether a humane, benevolent reaction is seen as the social norm. A research team led by psychologists Jamil Zaki of Stanford University and Erik Nook of Harvard University reports compassion isn’t simply an individual response to a perceived need.
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Do Monkeys Know When They Don’t Know Something?
Are humans the only animal that knows what they don’t know? A study by researchers at Yale and Harvard shows that rhesus monkeys also spontaneously recognize when they are ignorant and need to seek out more information. The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. “Metacognition— the ability to think about our own thoughts— has long been considered a hallmark of being human,” said Laurie Santos, Yale psychological scientist and senior author of the study. “We all know the difference between feeling like we know something for sure and feeling like we’re not all that certain.
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The Moral Science Behind Self-Driving Cars
An interdisciplinary team of researchers are conducting experiments to learn more about how people might react to the moral quandaries posed by self-driving cars.
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How Changing Predictions Affect Our Decision-Making
Pacific Standard: If you heard on the radio this morning that there was a 30 percent chance of rain, would you pack an umbrella? Now, what if that estimate represents a revision over the previous night’s forecast—down from 40 percent, say, or up from 20 percent? According to a new study, revisions like that affect how we subjectively perceive probabilities—and maybe how we make decisions about everything from umbrellas to climate change. ... But that is not how we human beings think about probability.
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A Small Fix in Mind-Set Can Keep Students in School
The Wall Street Journal: Education is the engine of social mobility and equality. But that engine has been sputtering, especially for the children who need help the most. Minority and disadvantaged children are especially likely to be suspended from school and to drop out of college. Why? Is it something about the students or something about the schools? And what can we do about it? Two recent studies published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences offer some hope. Just a few brief, inexpensive, online interventions significantly reduced suspension and dropout rates, especially for disadvantaged groups.
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Tutors See Stereotypes and Gender Bias in SAT. Testers See None of the Above.
The New York Times: In an annual ritual, hundreds of thousands of students took the SAT this spring as they made their first steps toward applying to college. But they were not the only ones being tested. Sprinkled among them in May, when the SAT was given for the second time since a much-ballyhooed revamping, were a number of people long past college — members of the test-prep industry who took the exam to see how those changes played out in practice so that they could improve their tutoring services. Armed with perhaps sharper pencils and a more jaundiced eye than the typical 17-year-old, they noticed two questions that some thought could throw off the performance of girls. ...
