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The Friend-Group Fallacy
My friendships exist in silos. Each hangout is a feverish one-on-one where we share fries and eye contact, confessions, rants, gossip, and mutual attempts at amateur therapy. This patchwork of get-togethers structures my week: a Wednesday happy hour with one friend, a Saturday-morning walk-and-talk with another, a Sunday coffee date with a third. It’s exhilarating—we genuinely want to know how each other’s moms are doing. ... People can experience different types of loneliness, Letitia Anne Peplau, the retired psychology professor who co-created the UCLA Loneliness Scale, told me.
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Why Some People Are Wired to Help Strangers, And What Their Brains Reveal
Abigail Marsh, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Georgetown University, studies extraordinary altruism — people who jump in to rescue strangers in emergencies or donate a kidney to someone they don’t know. Marsh spoke with Cristina Quinn, host of The Washington Post’s podcast “Try This,” about what her work has uncovered, and what brain science reveals about people who habitually engage in selfless acts. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
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8 Ways to Become a Nicer Person
Kids are taught that being nice means using magic words like “please” and “thank you,” sharing with friends, and taking turns without complaint. Then they grow up and enter a world where it’s normal to mock others online, scowl at their fellow shoppers at the grocery store, and ghost potential romantic partners. Does anyone really even know what being nice means anymore? ... Prosocial behavior, or doing kind acts that benefit others, helps everyone involved feel good.
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Why You Should Put Down Your Phone and Daydream Instead
At any bus stop or while waiting in line, most people will have their heads down looking at their phones. Recent research found that many people check their phones at least 50 times per day. But studies suggest that if you resist that urge and let your mind wander instead, there could be some serious benefits. Giving yourself time to daydream seems to be good for your well-being, for problem-solving and maybe even for your relationships. Daydreaming has been a subject of scientific research for decades. We spend as much as half our time awake daydreaming or listening to our own thoughts — but it isn’t always a pleasant experience.
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New Research From Psychological Science
A sample of recent articles covering overconfidence, rationality, sexual identity, and much more.
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For 2026, There’s a Better Way to Be Hopeful
As we look ahead to the new year, hope seems to be in short supply. Recent surveys have found that sizable majorities of Americans believed the United States was on track to become economically weaker and more politically divided, nearly 80 percent did not expect their children’s lives to be any better than theirs and more than half feared we would make little progress in dealing with major global challenges such as climate change over the next few decades. This lack of hope is ominous. Hope drives us to improve our lives and the world around us. When it’s extinguished, despair and paralysis fill the gap, making progress even less likely.
