How the Brain Links Generosity and Happiness
Sometimes the best way to make yourself happy is to make others happy. Recently, an international team of researchers made some progress in zeroing in on why this may...
Is Unethical Behavior Disgusting or Downright Infuriating?
Maybe unethical behavior makes your blood boil, or maybe it just plain disgusts you. Apparently, whether immoral actions provoke disgust or anger in you influences how you’ll respond. Psychologists...
Older and More Altruistic?
There’s something intuitively satisfying about the idea that we become less self-centered as we age. It fits with the image that “older” also means “wiser.” And according to a...
Surgery for Psychopaths?
The possibility that there are people around us who more or less look and act like us but don’t feel empathy like us is enough to give anyone the...
The Benefits of Biculturalism
People who move to a new place are often torn between assimilating to their new culture and staying in touch with their old one. Several studies suggest, however, that...
Why You’re Ungrateful
Having trouble getting into the Thanksgiving spirit? No problem, science has some good excuses for why you aren’t feeling very grateful. One of them comes from research published this...
Chimpanzees Can Cooperate Like Humans
People have both cooperative and competitive instincts that run deep. As long as people have been around, there have been some situations that require working with others and some...
Why Do We Do Things We Know Are Bad for the Environment?
Over the last couple decades, it has become common knowledge that we’ve got some problems with the environment. “Global warming” has become a household word, and people are starting...
4 Studies That Show the Difference Between Shame and Guilt
Guilt and shame often get lumped together, but there’s an essential difference between the two: guilt is about what you did while shame is about who you are. Feeling...
Helping Others Is One of the Best Ways of Helping Yourself
Let’s say you find someone who just did something generous and put them on the spot by interviewing them. You ask them, “Why did you do that generous thing?”...
