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Court rulings depend partly on when the judge last had a snack
The Economist: AROUND the world, courthouses are adorned with a statue of a blindfolded woman holding a set of scales and a sword: Justice personified. Her sword stands for the power of the court, her
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How Beliefs Shape Effort and Learning
If it was easy to learn, it will be easy to remember. Psychological scientists have maintained that nearly everyone uses this simple rule to assess their own learning. Now a study published in an upcoming
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Empathy and torture
The Economist: EMPATHY is often confused with sympathy in Washington and derided as a trait of bleeding-heart liberals. But whereas sympathy can be uninformed—”I could never imagine what she is going through”—empathy is the ability
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Are Your Values Right or Left? The Answer Is More Literal Than You Think
Up equals good, happy, optimistic; down the opposite. Right is honest and trustworthy. Left, not so much. That’s what language and culture tell us. “We use mental metaphors to structure our thinking about abstract things,”
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Torture – Too Severe for Empathy
An interrogation practice is classified as torture when it inflicts severe physical or mental pain. But the people who determine what defines severity aren’t experiencing that pain so they underestimate it. A study in an
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Care About Climate? Wearing a Coat Today?
Discovery News: Opinions about climate may be as fickle as the winds. A simple shift in temperature and Columbia University social scientists found that opinions about future climate trends changed accordingly. In surveys of 1,200
