human behaviour

Analysis and Comment (3)

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Is there a link between our cooperative nature and our love of lying? jinterwas

The evolution of lying

By Rob Brooks

Ultimately, our ability to convincingly lie to each other may have evolved as a direct result of our cooperative nature. Thus concludes the abstract of a new paper in the journal Proceedings of the Royal…
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Protesters march against the torture at Abu Ghraib; we use social psychology to help understand why people commit such acts. Shrieking Tree

Rethinking long-held beliefs about the psychology of evil

By Alex Haslam and Stephen Reicher, University of St Andrews

Social psychology addresses many of the important questions that concern us as human beings. It’s also the subject of newspaper editorials on most days: why is there conflict between groups? How can it…
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Cheating on a partner is always a choice, not a biologically determined effect. flickr/dhammza

Monogamy: cheating on what nature intended, or a simple choice?

By Lauren Rosewarne, University of Melbourne

Biologists and psychologists like to tussle with human characteristics: what’s inherent? What’s learnt? What’s genetically coded? What’s malleable? Every so often an “expert” will reignite the nature vs…

Research Briefs (1)

Greed more common than generosity

Harvard University

Greed is more likely to be “paid forward” than generosity. In an experiment, participants were given four tasks – two easy…

Participants (19)