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If you give a man a gun: the evolutionary psychology of mass shootings
The Conversation: Men commit over 85% of all homicides, 91% of all same-sex homicides and 97% of all same-sex homicides in which the victim and killer aren’t related to each other. These startling statistics are driven home with each new mass shooting (though the most recent tragedy in San Bernardino, California is a bit unusual in that a married couple were the shooters). In any event, politicians and the media are trotting out the usual suspects to explain the tragedy, whether it’s the lack of attention paid to mental illness or the easy availability of guns. But these explanations dance around the big questions: why is there always a man behind these shootings?
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Helping Others Dampens the Effects of Everyday Stress
Providing help to friends, acquaintances, and even strangers can mitigate the impact of daily stressors on our emotions and our mental health, according to research published in Clinical Psychological Science, a journal of the Association
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Scientists say this simple psychological shift can help you achieve your goals
Business Insider: Statistically speaking, there's a good chance you'll fail to keep your New Year's resolutions. Fortunately, you'll have plenty of opportunities to redeem yourself, even before January 1, 2017. The key? Be on the lookout for days that seem like transition points. ... In one experiment, researchers asked participants to describe a goal they would like to pursue. Then they prompted participants to imagine that they had just moved to a new apartment. Some were told that this was the first time they had moved since coming to this city nine years ago; others were told they had moved every year. Read the whole story: Business Insider
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The Vicious Cycle of Cops Behaving Badly
Pacific Standard: Cops act badly. The public loses confidence in cops. Cops behave worse. The public's trust in cops drops to an all-time low. It's a dangerous, vicious cycle. With the recent surge in media coverage of unarmed black men being gunned down by police officers, America's faith in police officers is plummeting. And it's not just the public that's losing faith: According to a new study in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, this "crisis in police legitimacy" is not only detrimental to the general public, but also to the future of policing as a whole. Read the whole story: Pacific Standard
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Born to Be Conned
The New York Times: THERE’S an adage you hear most any time you mention con artists: You can’t cheat an honest man. It’s a comforting defense against vulnerability, but is it actually true? No, as it turns out; honesty has precious little to do with it. Equally blameless is greed, at least in the traditional sense. What matters instead is greed of a different sort: a deep need to believe in a version of the world where everything really is for the best — at least when it comes to us. Robin Lloyd wasn’t looking to get rich. She was just a poor college student who thought she’d finally caught a break. It was 1982, and Ms. Lloyd was making her first trip to New York City.
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Kids Who Handle Money Work Harder, but There’s a Downside
Fortune: Money can make youngsters as little as three years old work harder, but there’s evidence it can also make them less charitable. Money makes the world go round. Even when you’re three years old. That’s the finding of a new international study, which found that children work harder around money, even before they understand how it works. The youngsters are activating something called “market mode”—a primal force that not only fosters persistence, but also makes them less charitable and less helpful.
