A blog about human brains and behavior for students of psychology.
If there’s an upside to adversity, it might be greater empathy for others. That idea makes a certain intuitive sense to us, and there’s some evidence to support it. Take, for example, a 2016 study published in the journal Emotion.
It’s a common complaint that kids these days don’t get outside enough. There may be something to that claim, as well, with parents of 8 to 12 year olds saying in one survey that their children spent three times as
As I’ve written about before, people give gifts for a range of reasons – sometimes simply to do something nice, sometimes because they want to influence others. A new study from researchers in Italy sheds light on another function gifts
It’s hard to be concerned with lofty philosophical principles when you’re hungry. A new study from researchers at University of Chicago underscores this point in the context of an ethical dilemma that children face every day: whether to share. Of
Last week, I wrote about the health and mental health benefits of volunteering. Today brings us another study on the theme of helping others being a good way to help yourself. If all this talk about the benefits of helping
Volunteering is an activity that seems to have as many benefits for the person doing it as for the people it’s intended to help. This seems to be true starting relatively early in life, with young adults who volunteer more
A compassionate disposition and a desire to see someone get their “just deserts” might not seem to go together. But a new study suggests that people who are more compassionate also prefer to see harsher punishments doled out when someone
When it comes to material goods, people are never quite satisfied with what they have. Eventually, that cool new phone you got for Christmas starts to seem routine. You get a good job, but sooner or later, you start to
When it comes to the basic psychological needs of adolescence, we often talk about things like becoming more independent and developing a sense of identity. A new paper argues that teenagers have another fundamental psychological need we don’t talk about
If you’re looking for a scientifically tested, step-by-step formula for becoming happier, this is probably as close as you’re going to get. That makes me sound like I’m hawking copies of a self-help book. But I’m actually just talking about
