Browsing: Psychology

We don’t like cookie-cutter suburbs, but we buy there anyway.

Feliciano Guimaraes via Flickr The news earlier this fall that chemical weapons had been used in Syria’s civil was seen as a new low in that conflict. Many people condemned their use as “disgusting”; President Obama, making the case for a military response, said the images from the attack were “sickening.” Nautilus Members enjoy an […]

Sarah Horrigan via Flickr Keeping a secret can be hard work. It may seem relatively easy to avoid mentioning your friend’s surprise birthday party or your co-worker’s recent breakup, but concealing even trivial information, let alone important things, can be exhausting. When keeping a secret, we have to constantly monitor what we say to make […]

New approaches are helping autistic people understand “neurotypicals”—and vice versa.

What neuroscience is learning from code-breakers and thieves.

A family therapist uncovers the cost of keeping silent.

Opening locked minds with music.

A leet hacker recounts an epic pwning.

It’s an odd quirk of the human mind that we tend to think we’re less likely to be affected a particular threat—be it the flu, a car accident, or a flood—than anyone else. Like the fictional town of Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average, this is a patent impossibility: Everyone can’t be […]

We humans take a lot for granted. Pizza delivery, email, smartphones, dishwashers. All of this occurs in the background, making our lives simpler. None of it requires any explicit effort. Our minds also do a lot of subconscious work that we take for granted. Have you ever seriously thought about how you know that the […]