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Don’t Know What the Angular Gyrus Is? Your Heart Does
“For years, science has relegated our love to this basic instinct, almost like an addiction that has no redeeming value.” These are not the words of some New Age evangelist preaching from the mount at a couples retreat in Arizona but of Stephanie Cacioppo, a neuroscientist at the University of Chicago who has spent much of her career mapping the dynamics of love in the brain. Her research and some of the theories she has developed put her at odds with other scientists who have described romantic love as an emotion, a primitive drive, even a drug. Using neuroimaging, Dr.
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Do You Have Charisma?
We’re used to thinking of charisma as indefinable. It has been called alchemy, or a mysterious gift. But maybe charisma isn’t such a mystery, after all. According a study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers from the University of Toronto have developed a scientific measure of charisma that they say is a simple, accurate way to figure out if you have it. ...
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The Psychology of Giving Human Names to Your Stuff
According to a 2013 poll from the insurance company Nationwide, around 25 percent of car owners have named their ride. Granted, the survey isn’t exactly scientific, but while the statistic may not be a perfect reflection of reality, it does align with something you may have already seen in the wild: Plenty of people like to name the appliances in their lives — cars, laptops, bikes. Maybe you know someone who does it. Maybe it’s you! ... “We think there are multiple reasons why this happens,” says psychologist Nicholas Epley, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
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Why written languages look alike the world over
What do Cyrillic, Arabic, Sanskrit, and 113 other writing systems have in common? Different as they appear at first glance, they share basic structural features, according to a new study: characters with vertical symmetry (like the Roman letters A and T) and a preference for vertical and horizontal lines over oblique lines (like those in the letters X and W). The explanation appears to be rooted in the wiring of our brain. “People appear to have an aesthetic preference for certain kinds of shapes and designs, and that preference seems to explain the writing systems we see,” says Julie Fiez, a psychologist at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania who was not involved in the study.
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Here’s how scientists are tricking you into eating your veggies
There are people in this world who genuinely love vegetables. Some snack on frozen broccoli straight from the bag. Others crave carrots, adore asparagus, and even finish their kale without being bribed, begged, or threatened. Then there are the rest of us. Sure, a vegetable-rich diet lowers your risk for high blood pressure, heart disease, certain cancers, and more. But why do they have to taste so … vegetal? ... But there may yet be hope for us vegetable skeptics. Scientists are coming up with ways to cajole you into eating your veggies. Some involve a little bit of manipulation, while others focus on making the vegetables themselves taste better.
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How #MeToo Sparks Sharing — And Healing
As a Ph.D. candidate in the social sciences more than 20 years ago, Duana Welch, 49, had done enough research to know the consequences she'd face by reporting sexual harassment in the workplace. "When women came forward with allegations of sexual abuse and sexual harassment, the woman was the person blamed and the woman was not believed," she said. "I was very angry that I would pay the price for coming forward. I knew what would happen." ...
