New research has shown that having positive contact with people from diverse groups can reduce the development of harmful intergroup conspiracy beliefs. Experts from the University of Nottingham’s School of Psychology, in collaboration with the University of East Anglia, found that among British participants, positive intergroup contact interfered with the development of conspiracy theories about...
Putting truth to the test in the “post-truth era”, Boston College psychologists conducted experiments that show when Americans decide whether a claim of fact should qualify as true or false, they consider the intentions of the information source, the team reported recently in Nature’s Scientific Reports. That confidence is based on what individuals think the source...
Analysis of data from dozens of foraging societies around the world shows that women hunt in at least 79 percent of these societies, opposing the widespread belief that men exclusively hunt and women exclusively gather. Abigail Anderson of Seattle Pacific University, US, and colleagues present these findings in PLOS ONE. A common belief holds that,...
Women are less willing to take risks than men because they are more sensitive to the pain of any losses they might incur than any gains they might make, new research from the University of Bath School of Management shows. Published in the British Psychological Society’s British Journal of Psychology, the study – “Gender differences in optimism, loss...
Researchers from University of St. Gallen and Columbia Business School published a new Journal of Marketing article that examines how the perceived meaning of manual labor can help predict the adoption of autonomous products. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled “Meaning of Manual Labor Impedes Consumer Adoption of Autonomous Products” and is authored by Emanuel de Bellis, Gita Venkataramani...
Workplace ostracism refers to an employee’s perception of being excluded, ignored, or rejected in the workplace. A study published in PLOS ONE by Jun Qiu at School of Nanchang, Institute of Technology, Nanchang, Jiangxi, China and colleagues suggests that romantic relationships between coworkers are associated with perceived ostracism and knowledge sabotage by other colleagues. Workplace romance can...
Few people would have predicted that a loquacious drama about a woman foreign service professional would have been Netflix’s next big hit. But everyone is talking about “The Diplomat” – for good reason. The series, starring Keri Russell as the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, debuted at No. 1 on the streaming charts. Critics...
A common complaint in America today is that politics and even society as a whole are broken. Critics point out endless lists of what should be fixed: the complexity of the tax code, or immigration reform, or the inefficiency of government. But each dilemma usually comes down to polarized deadlock between two competing visions and...
Gone are the days of dictatorial leaders in sport, screaming from the side-lines and insulting their players, and instead we are seeing an era of emotionally intelligent leaders who demonstrate an understanding of other people while getting effective results. The question is, how do you become an empathic leader in elite sports and will it...
Understanding how beliefs are formed and why they can be resistant to counter evidence is important in today’s polarized world, as views sharply diverge on issues ranging from vaccines to climate change. To debunk a false belief, it may be better to target a person’s system of beliefs rather than trying to change the false...
