How much does human behavior influence climate change? Can it be changed, and how? In June, climate change experts and behavioral scientists came together to answer these important questions.
A new study doubles the age of ancient DNA in sub-Saharan Africa, revealing how people moved, mingled and had children together over the last 50,000 years.
New research shows that though we are good at making healthy choices for those we care for, we are often subsequently less good at taking care of ourselves.
Behavioral economics, long employed in grocery stores to guide customers to certain products, could be employed by food banks and pantries to encourage healthier choices.
Researchers unearthed the 105,000-year-old artefacts from a spiritual site in southern Africa. Although far from the coast, the area is associated with stories of a great water snake.
Public health recommendations have always been a hard sell. Resistance to new behaviors – like the mask-wearing and social distancing advised during the COVID-19 pandemic – is part of human nature.
The footprints of over 20 different prehistoric people, pressed into volcanic ash thousands of years ago in Tanzania, show possible evidence for sexual division of labor in this ancient community.
Faced with uncertain and anxious times, brains send out instructions to start stockpiling supplies – whether you’re a person facing a pandemic, or a rodent prepping for a long winter.
Wändi Bruine de Bruin, University of Southern California; Anya Samek, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and Daniel Bennett, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Using a survey taken from March 10 – March 16, social scientists tried to untangle the complicated connection between feelings of vulnerability and behavior change in response to the coronavirus.
Where do the cooperative skills that hold together human societies come from and why don’t our selfish instincts overwhelm them? Evolutionary game theory suggests that empathy is a crucial contributor.
Americans are spending almost three and a half hours on their phones and tablets every day, twice the amount just five years ago. A behavioral scientist offers a few tips on how to take control.
Ninety percent of psychology studies come from countries representing less than 15 percent of the world’s population. Researchers are realizing that universalizing those findings might not make sense.
Law professor Cass Sunstein, on why behavioural science is always nudging us
The Conversation20.5 MB(download)
Governments and businesses are using "nudges" to influence our choices, but how? On this podcast episode, Cass Sunstein, a Harvard professor who wrote the book on nudges, unpacks behavioural science.
Our social institutions and politics suffer from a collective arrested development – and our relationship to technology has only exacerbated this trend.
Forty years ago, Rebecca Moore’s two sisters helped plan the Jonestown massacre. But she refuses to say they were brainwashed, arguing that it prevents us from truly understanding their behavior.
Professor of Public Policy, Psychology and Behavioral Science, USC Sol Price School of Public Policy, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences