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Given that machines will continue to proliferate in our environment, it behooves us to begin to develop friendly relationships with them.

The bottle of wine you and your partner shared last night didn’t kill a single neuron in your head and, contrary to what you’ve been told, you are always using […]

"How can economic modernization be combined with cultural robustness and social well-being?" Columbia Economics professor Jeffrey Sachs looks at Bhutan for clues to the answer.

I have theory, it is a personal theory not quite backed up by empirical evidence, that one of the reasons so many people are single is that they are poor […]

A former New Zealand Member of Parliament is setting out on a new business venture that she feels will be very popular—a brothel for women. She has even done her […]

We have long wanted to create a neuron-by-neuron map of the brain’s circuitry to give us a 3-D glimpse into its connections are, how they work and how the different […]

You have to “give yourself over to the visual experience” and try to understand an image’s intellectual and psychological context.

New polls from Gallup show that commuting adversely affects physical and emotional health. Those with longer commutes suffer back and neck pain and worry more than non-commuters.

Ever since he came out to the public in February 2007, former NBA player John Amaechi says he has been “that big gay guy.” But there is much more to […]

Defining the current generation of twenty and thirty year olds is a controversial task for psychological researchers. Some say Gen Y is selfish and insensitive while others disagree.

Nick Bilton‘s I Live in the Future & Here’s How it Works (Crown/Random House) has just been released. It’s a contemporary memoir of the New York Times tech correspondent and […]

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t,” Polonius says in Act 2 of Shakespeare’s Hamlet after an exchange with the title character. After encountering the unique sculpture of […]

Props to my colleague Lindsay Beyerstein for this great catch yesterday: Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle’s campaign received a donation from someone who listed her employer as “husband” and her […]

Psychiatrists see a lot of people who are, to use the technical term, screwed up. Psychiatrists’ talk, then, often turns around curing, or ameliorating, or at least preventing “bad” behaviors […]

When we think of Sigmund Freud, we think first of words—the “talking cure” of psychoanalysis, books such as The Interpretation of Dreams, and the infamous Freudian slip. In Mirrors of […]

A recent article has me worried; apparently there is a penalty associated with being a “sexy” professor.*  Until now, all I had been worried about was that the mother of […]

Is a person’s propensity toward evil a matter of malfunctioning synapses and neurons? Michael Stone, professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University and author of “The Anatomy of Evil,” says […]

A new study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology finds that wearing red makes men appear more powerful, more likely to make money and more likely to climb the social ladder.

As we discussed in the previous Going Mental posts, some of the most fundamental mechanisms of the human brain remain a mystery to scientists. Consciousness, intelligence, and sleep are so […]

By measuring a subject's brain waves, researchers at Northwestern University can detect the presence of "concealed information". The technique could be used to uncover terrorist plots.

Social networks like Twitter not only blur the line between public and private selves, but also between authentic and contrived ones. An author finds herself inventing her own psychology.

As our lives become ever more virtual, retailers are betting there will be increasing demand for virtual goods as well. In the future, gaming and retail will be a fully integrated experience.

Northwestern University professor Alice Eagly says the highest leadership positions today are more open to women than ever—but there are female-specific branches at each career stage that lead many away.

This paper in the current issue of the journal Neuron claims to add some MRI findings to the evidence that human empathy and kindness stop at the border between “our […]

If a cliché is beautifully wrought does it save it from the evils of being cliché? David Brooks does not like what he refers to as the “Quiet Desperation dogma” […]

"It is the poor, not the rich, who are inclined to charity." The Economist reports on a study that finds the less affluent are quicker to compassion and more willing to give to the needy.

Game designers are having to think more like marketers: “We’re used to having fun be at the core, but now funding is at the core,” says Schell. “Now we design […]

From restarting the economy to dealing with climate change, society’s biggest questions turn on how they are defined by advocates and the news media and acted upon by the public […]

Timothy Noah at Slate on, "What your enjoyment of sleep-away camp, or lack of same, says about your character." How much did these hideaways determine our adult psychology?

"It seems like we in the West have made a tradeoff between self-reliance and physical comforts and social well being. So, which is more important?" asks a Notre Dame psychology professor.