Mind, features and articles | Educational Science

Mar 14, 2017

Infamous 1960s Study Repeated: How Far Would You Go to Obey Authority?

In an infamous series of experiments first conducted in the 1960s, Stanley Milgram, a social psychologist, asked study participants to deliver painful electric shocks to other people. The shock was not real, but the people in the study didn't know that. Milgram found that the study participants were willing to...

Mar 24, 2017

Why People Say 'You' When They Mean 'Me'

Sometimes you doesn't mean you, a new study finds. Instead, in these instances, people say you to make it easier to talk about a negative experience, according to the study. In this sense, the word you can, somewhat obliquely, mean me. For example, people may say, you win some, you...

Apr 8, 2017

Don Rickles: Why Legendary Comic's Jabs Are Funny, Not Offensive

Famed stand-up comedian and actor Don Rickles, who died April 6 at age 90, cultivated a curmudgeonly persona for decades and was celebrated for his caustic cracks. Known as the insult comic, his pointed put-downs spared no one, not even celebrities many other comedians would consider off-limits. Before he became...

Apr 10, 2017

Why Narcissists Want to Make Their Partners Jealous

If you've ever had a partner who flirted with other people right in front of you, chatted up attractive strangers and tried to make you feel like you couldn't measure up, well, maybe you were dating a narcissist. And maybe they were doing it on purpose. New research suggests that...

May 3, 2017

Don't Worry If You're a Worrier … It Could Be Good for You

Although worrying does not feel good, it may have surprising benefits, when done in just the right amount, two psychology researchers argue in a new editorial. For example, worrying may motivate people to engage in behaviors that are potentially beneficial to their health, the researchers said. People who are worried...

May 22, 2017

Why We Probably Can't Use Tech to Become More Moral

Are there inventions that could make people morally better? A new study suggests that moral enhancement technologies, such as drugs or brain stimulation devices aimed at making people better morally, are neither feasible nor wise. Increasingly, researchers are exploring whether drugs or devices can lead to cognitive enhancement — that...

May 23, 2017

Why Bad Moods Are Good For You

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.Homo sapiens is a very moody species. Even though sadness and bad moods have always been part of the human experience, we now live in an age that ignores or...

Dec 5, 2017

Why You May Hear a Loud Boom When Watching This Silent GIF

What do you hear when you watch this GIF? If you hear a loud boom each time the tower lands, you're not alone — but there isn't actually any sound accompanying the GIF. The animated image, which has been making the rounds on Twitter recently, was created 10 years ago...

Dec 14, 2017

Why There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays

While Christmas playlists often include cheesy favorites like Rockin Around the Christmas Tree and I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, there are also a handful of wistful tracks that go a little bit deeper. Listen closely to I'll be Home for Christmas or White Christmas, and you'll hear a deep...

Jan 3, 2018

When You're Sick, Your Face Is a Dead Giveaway

When a sick person walks into a room, there's a good chance that people around them can tell something's off — even if they aren't coughing, blowing their nose or exhibiting any other obvious signs of illness, according to a small new study. In the study, published today (Jan. 3)...

Jan 31, 2018

Brain Scans Can Reveal Who Your True Friends Are

A new study finds that close friends react to spontaneous stimuli, such as TV channels flicking by, with remarkably similar thought processes. Researchers also found that they could accurately predict how close two people were based solely on their brain activity in response to a series of unfamiliar video clips....

Feb 5, 2018

Could a 19th-Century 'Alienist' Understand the Criminal Mind?

TNT's new dramatic series The Alienist, which premiered Jan. 22, features a 19th-century psychologist — known at the time as an alienist — leading the search for a murderer in New York City in 1896. Based on the 1994 Caleb Carr novel by the same name, The Alienist offers a...

Feb 14, 2018

How Much Money Would It Take to Make You Happy? Scientists Calculate

Money may not buy you love, but it turns out that the green stuff can bring happiness, to a point: New research finds that there's a limit to how beneficial a lofty income is to an individual's well-being. And that sweet spot in income, the new study revealed, is largely...

Mar 12, 2018

These Personality Traits Could Put You At Risk for Social Media Addiction

Whether it's scrolling through Instagram or constantly refreshing your Facebook feed, social media can eat up hours of your day. But if you find it particularly hard to stay away from social media, your personality may be partly to blame. According to a new study, people with certain personality traits...

Mar 20, 2018

Psychologists Have a Plan to Fix the Broken Science of Psychology

There was something wrong with psychology. A cascade of warning signs arrived all at once in 2011. Famous psychological experiments failed, over and over, when researchers re-did them in their own labs. Even worse, the standard methods researchers used in their labs turned out under close scrutiny to be wishy-washy...