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Are Humans Hardwired for Fairness?
Is fairness simply a ruse, something we adopt only when we secretly see an advantage in it for ourselves? Many psychologists have in recent years moved away from this purely utilitarian view, dismissing it as
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A Little Anxiety Pays Sometimes, Study Shows
Anxiety gets a lot of bad press. Dwelling on the negative can lead to chronic stress and anxiety disorders and phobias, but evolutionarily speaking, anxiety holds some functional value. In humans, learning to avoid harm
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How We Think Before We Speak: Making Sense of Sentences
We engage in numerous discussions throughout the day, about a variety of topics, from work assignments to the Super Bowl to what we are having for dinner that evening. We effortlessly move from conversation to
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True or False? How Our Brain Processes Negative Statements
Every day we are confronted with positive and negative statements. By combining the new, incoming information with what we already know, we are usually able to figure out if the statement is true or false.
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Seeing is Believing, but Hearing Could Be Misleading
The game “spot-the-difference,” in which a player is presented with two photos and asked to pinpoint the variations, is an excellent example of the human brain’s ability to perceive detailed changes in complex images. Up
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Unanimous Union: The Mind and Body Together Lean Toward ‘Truthiness’
‘Truthiness,’ according to television satirist Stephen Colbert, represents the human preference to follow our intuition despite the presence of facts or evidence. For example, the more ambiguous an answer to a question, the more likely
