Bias

People Don’t Learn to Trust Bots

AI elicits better cooperation through deception.

Scientific American

How Negativity Can Kill a Relationship

Successful marriages are defined not by improvement, but by avoiding decline.

The Atlantic

‘The Power of Bad’ Review: How to Reset a Mind-Set

An ingrained negativity bias leads to a perpetual sense of crisis, a feeling that things are getting worse — even when things are getting better.

The Wall Street Journal

In Search of a Satisfying Life — Past, Present, and Future

Many of us mistakenly believe that the quality of our lives has changed from the past, and we expect that it will change into the future. But such beliefs do not necessarily reflect our actual life experiences.

Character & Context, Society for Personality and Social Psychology

Empathy Is Tearing Us Apart

Americans are as polarized as they’ve ever been. Could the problem be that we’re caring for each other too much?

WIRED

How Personal Experience of Adversity Influences Our Feelings of Compassion Towards Others

“Surviving past adversity leads people to believe they will be effective in helping others, which allows them to up-regulate their feelings of compassion in the face of more demanding events,” the researchers conclude.

British Psychological Society Research Digest

Societies Are Tearing Apart, But They Can Be Brought Together

We must reduce the social distance between people and focus on shared human traits, says Adam Waytz, author of The Power of Human.

Open Future, The Economist

Positive Attitudes About Aging May Pay Off in Better Health

A bias against growing older has physical effects.

Science News

How Much of This Post Will You Read Before Making Up Your Mind About It?

From evaluating artwork, novel foods, or goods and services to evaluating peers, political candidates, and marriage prospects, people use far less information than they think they will before making judgments and decisions.

Character & Context, Society for Personality and Social Psychology

Is the Western Mind Too WEIRD to Study?

Psychologist says research relies on too many participants from Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic societies.

Science

Has Humanity Reached ‘Peak Intelligence’?

Are our IQs set to increase forever, or are we on the cusp of decline? David Robson explores the past, present, and future of intelligence.

BBC Future

Now You See It

Our brains predict the outcomes of our actions, shaping reality into what we expect. That’s why we see what we believe.

Aeon

Finding the Value of Being a ‘Good-ish’ Person

Dolly Chugh is the author of The Person You Mean to Be.

TODAY

Authenticity Under Fire

Researchers are calling into question authenticity as a scientifically viable concept.

Beautiful Minds, Scientific American

In-Group Favoritism Is Difficult to Change, Even When the Social Groups Are Meaningless

One has to go to great lengths to counteract the deeply ingrained tendency to infuse new social groups with rich meaning.

Beautiful Minds, Scientific American

Presenting Science to the Public in a Post-Truth Era

Grappling with the challenge of how, in this time of sweeping science denial, scientists can craft messages about their research that not only inform but also persuade.

UConn Today

Facts Aren’t Enough: The Psychology of False Beliefs

Sometimes, when we believe something, no amount of data can change our minds.

Hidden Brain, NPR

The Case for Empathy

In a world of difference we can — and should — work harder to cultivate subtle, perceptive empathy toward all human beings.

Aeon

The Science of Looking on the Bright Side

How neuroscientist Tali Sharot accidentally stumbled on what’s known as “the optimism bias” — our hard-wired belief that our future will be better than our past or present.

To the Best of Our Knowledge

Brain Scan Evidence in Criminal Sentencing: A Blessing and a Curse

How do jurors use different kinds of information about mental illness when making sentencing decisions? An experiment finds that neurobiological evidence could harm or help defendants.

The Conversation

The “Bias Blind Spot” Just Replicated (“Everyone Else Is More Biased Than Me”)

Prasad Chandrashekar, Siu Kit Yeung, and colleagues report reproducing the original study.

British Psychological Society Research Digest