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Hormone Oxytocin Improves Social Cognition But Only in Less Socially Proficient Individuals
Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found that the naturally-occurring hormone oxytocin selectively improves social cognitive abilities for less socially proficient individuals, but has little effect on those who are more socially proficient.
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Making Sense of Ambiguous Faces
We all use stereotypes every day, whether we like it or not. It’s how we sort an impossibly complex world into manageable categories: man, woman, Italian, Chinese, lawyer, engineer. Stereotypes can be unfair and hurtful
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White as Snow, Black as Sin: The Colors of Moral Purity and Pollution
What do wedding dresses and doves have to do with toothpaste and soap? Psychologists Gary Sherman and Gerald Clore from the University of Virginia found that the perceptual symbols of purity, such as snow and
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Is That Your Final Answer? Study Suggests Method For Improving Individual Decisions
Herd mentality. Angry mob. Mass hysteria. As these phrases suggest, we are not always confident that a large group of people will come up with the smartest decisions. So it may be surprising to learn
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Picky Preschoolers: Young Children Prefer Majority Opinion
When we are faced with a decision, and we’re not sure what to do, usually we’ll just go with the majority opinion. When do we begin adopting this strategy of “following the crowd”? In a
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Oh, How Wonderful! A Study on the Cognition of Verbal Irony
Irony is commonplace in everyday conversation. When you get stuck in traffic and say to yourself, “Perfect!” we know that’s not what you really mean. But how exactly are we able to hear something and
