Given my academic background it may come as little surprise that when I gamble, I expect to lose in the long run. But, that is not to say that I don’t have some golden rules that I apply in gambling situations…
Studies have, in the past, suggested that dogs appeal most to people who are extroverted, conscientious, agreeable and conventional.
Cams
Pets inspire powerful emotions and strong attachments. They comfort the sick, console the lonely and entertain the children. We invite them into our families, pay their human-sized medical expenses and…
Winners are definitely grinners – but what makes teams such as Spain so successful?
EPA/Kerim Okten
It is hard to imagine a World Cup in which Germany, Brazil, Italy, Argentina, the Netherlands, England, France and Spain did not appear, or in which one of them did not win. What is it that makes some…
“Water makes you happier, more connected and better at what you do,” says Wallace J Nichols, a marine biologist and wild water advocate based at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. On…
Genetics is just the latest specialist knowledge threatening to take the question of criminal responsibility away from law and hand it over to science.
Graham/Flickr
Welcome to Biology and Blame, a series of articles examining historical and current influences on the notion of criminal responsibility. Today, Arlie Loughnan considers the challenge to the legal system…
Trust me guys, you’ll like me in the morning.
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We’ve all returned home after a night out at a party to find a Facebook friend request from someone you briefly met but barely know. Just to be polite, you add the person to your friend list. But it turns…
Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Harry had always been small and skinny for his age … [he] had a thin face, knobbly knees … and wore round glasses held together with a…
We often use the weather as a metaphor for how we’re feeling: gloomy, sunny or under a cloud. But how does it actually affect us? In this episode of TCTV, Nick Haslam describes the influence of sunny skies…
Does mankind’s religious instinct date back to prehistoric times?
iurri
Notions of gods arise in all human societies, from all powerful and all-knowing deities to simple forest spirits. A recent method of examining religious thought and behaviour links their ubiquity and the…
Interesting hand … could you keep it a secret?
Carsten Tolkmit/Flickr
As the annual World Series of Poker gets rolling in Las Vegas later this month, hopeful competitors will be buying in and getting their poker faces on. But why is it such a challenge to recognise deception…
Celebrity couple Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin announced a split after 10 years of marriage.
EPA/Britta Pedersen & Jose Coelho
Oscar winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin seemed to have the perfect marriage until their “conscious uncoupling” earlier this year. Was the split destined to happen? What…
Everyone knows someone with a quick temper – it might even be you. And while scientists have known for decades that aggression is hereditary, there is another biological layer to those angry flare-ups…
Subjecting job seekers to bogus personality tests, as the UK did, was a misuse of behavioural insights.
Lucky Business/Shutterstock
Do you consider yourself a rational person? For the most part, you probably are. If something hurts, you’ll stop doing it. If you like something, you’ll buy more of it, but you’ll rethink your decision…
Awkward and embarrassing, the human act of blushing raises many difficult psychological and physiological questions. Why should an emotional response take this particular form and does it serve any purpose…
New research shows how a climate of uncertainty pushes us towards worse outcomes.
Lukiyanova Natalia/frenta/Shutterstock
If we’re not certain that the problem’s there, then … we shouldn’t take actions which have a high severity the other way. This was the response from David Murray – then chairman of Australia’s Future Fund…
Milgram concluded that most of us can be induced to torture someone else at the behest of an authority figure – but that’s only part of the story.
afromztoa/Flickr
Nick Haslam, The University of Melbourne and Gina Perry, The University of Melbourne
Chances are you’ve heard of Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments. In 1961, Milgram recruited pairs of volunteers to take part in a “memory test”. One volunteer was given the job of teacher, the other…
Climbing the social ladder can be slippery in parts for teenagers.
Sadie Hernandez/Flickr
The stereotype that popular kids don’t get bullied has been busted by a new study that found becoming more popular at school can actually increase a student’s risk of being bullied. The study, published…
What do you think the opposite sex finds attractive in you? If you’re a guy, do you think that women prefer bulging muscles and washboard abs? Or, if you’re a woman, maybe you think men prefer skinny girls…
Artist Ash Keating, like others, relinquishes final control to the laws of physics and nature.
David Crosling/AAP
There’s a two-storey warehouse wall in Melbourne’s western suburbs where man-made concrete uniformity has been transformed. On this enormous vertical surface is a complex, apparently natural scene that…