By: Megan E. Birney 2011 marks 10 years since the mixed-race category was added to the U.K.’s annual censes.  To commemorate this event, BBC Two has been running a series of programmes documenting the mixed-race experience both in Britain and ……
- 17 Oct 11, 9:23pm -

- 6 Oct 11, 10:26pm -

Social and Personality Psychology Compass © Blackwell Publishing Ltd Volume 5, Issue 10 Pages 694 – 823, October 2011 The latest issue of Social and Personality Psychology Compass is available on Wiley Online Library   Emotion Motivation Affiliat…
- 5 Oct 11, 7:52am -

By Kevin R. Betts Netflix witnessed a storm of customer outrage and tumbling stock prices this month as they dramatically increased their price for subscription to the service. Early this morning, CEO Reed Hastings reacted with an email to customers.…
- 19 Sep 11, 5:47pm -

Navy videographer at Ground Zero In the 10 years since the events of September 2001 a vast amount of scholarly research has been written on the impact of 9/11. Wiley-Blackwell is pleased to share with you this collection of free book and … Contin…
- 2 Sep 11, 10:21am -

- 7 Aug 11, 1:13pm -

By Kevin R. Betts I started reading a book this weekend titled, “The Perfect Swarm: The Science of Complexity in Everyday Life.” Author Len Fisher’s central idea is that understanding swarm intelligence can help us make better decisions. Swarm…
- 1 Aug 11, 2:00am -

By Erica Zaiser I came across this cartoon recently from Funnymos.com: Obviously it is meant to be humorous but it also made me wonder:  Does having a trait like glasses change people’s initial impressions of you? And has there been … Continue r…
- 26 Jul 11, 1:43pm -

By: Megan Birney We all want to be happy.  It’s something we’ve learned to strive for and likely the primary motivator for trying to land that perfect job, find your soul mate, start a family, get that promotion or buy … Continue reading →
- 24 Jul 11, 10:03pm -

By, Adam K. Fetterman Making appeals to religion is nothing new for American politics. Nearly every candidate makes statements such as “God bless America” or claims that their candidacy is a calling from God. However, on the other end of … Cont…
- 12 Jul 11, 5:50pm -

A new article by Dan Fessler, Anne Pisor,& David Navarrete, highly relevant to cultural epidemiology in PLoS ONE 9(4): e95167. doi:10.1371Abstract: The functions of cultural beliefs are often opaque to those who hold them. Accordingly, to benefit fr…
- 9 days ago, 16 Apr 14, 7:35am -

The Vilnius Experimental Philosophy Lab,  the Departments of General Psychology and of Logic and History of Philosophy organize a conference on: The Moral Domain: Conceptual Issues in Moral Psychology, the 9-11 October 2014 at Vilnius University…
- 50 days ago, 6 Mar 14, 11:37am -

A new, important article by David Pietraszewski, Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby: The Content of Our Cooperation, Not the Color of Our Skin: An Alliance Detection System Regulates Categorization by Coalition and Race, but Not Sex. (PLoS ONE, 2012, 9(2…
- 53 days ago, 2 Mar 14, 8:01pm -

Nick Enfield -- ethnolinguist at the Max Planck institute for psycholinguistics (and contributor to ICCI) -- has published a new book, Relationship Thinking.Here's the blurb from Oxford University Press:In Relationship Thinking, N. J. Enfield outl…
- 85 days ago, 30 Jan 14, 10:58am -

The new The Edge annual question, and the answers, are now online.The question was: "What scientific idea is ready for retirement?"Here are some answers that could be relevant to the ICCI crowd:Oliver Scott Curry AssociationismN.J. Enfield A Science…
- 98 days ago, 16 Jan 14, 3:35pm -

A new Doctoral programme in the cognitive the science of religion has been established by Aarhus University (Graduate School of Arts/Religion, Cognition and Culture Research Unit--see http://www.rcc.au.dk/) and Queen’s University, Belfast (School…
- 9 Jan 14, 2:28pm -

The CEU Summer University announces the course: “Morality: Evolutionary Origins and Cognitive Mechanisms”, June 23-30, 2014, Budapest, Hungary . Application deadline: February 14, 2014.What makes humans moral beings? This question can be unders…
- 7 Jan 14, 4:27pm -

A conference on "Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Moral Psychology" sponsored by Korea University and the Rutgers University Research Group on Evolution & Cognition will take place at the Korea University, Seoul, South Korea / 20th-22nd March 2014.Pos…
- 7 Jan 14, 3:37pm -

(This post concludes our "book club" webinar discussing Ara Norenzayan's latest book with its author. This précis introduced the discussion.)In what follows I’ll make some general concluding comments, and also address four remaining posts by Nico…
- 17 Dec 13, 9:52pm -

I like Ara’s way of studying scientific problems very much, weaving together various disciplines from evolutionary modelling to experimental psychology or social anthropology, and I also like the way he tries to solve the questions he raises. Howev…
- 13 Dec 13, 1:20pm -

The FDA has issued a warning that Easter lilies are toxic to cats. According to veterinarian Dr. Melanie McLean at the US Food and Drug Administration ingestion of even a small portion of the leaves, pollen or flowers of the plant are very poisonous…
- 6 days ago, 19 Apr 14, 7:56am -

I am very excited about the upcoming Experimental Biology conference that starts next weekend. I just looked through the Spring newsletter for the Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology section of the American Physiological Society. Check out the ex…
- 6 days ago, 19 Apr 14, 7:07am -

Women aren’t the only ones at risk for depression and in need of screening services when a new baby comes into their lives. Young fathers face significant mental health challenges as well, according to a new study.
- 6 days ago, 18 Apr 14, 3:45pm -

An river otter was captured on camera taking on an juvenile alligator…and winning. The battle took place at the Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge in Florida in 2011. More images can be seen on their Facebook page where the images were recent…
- 15 days ago, 10 Apr 14, 3:55am -

Heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) helps keep proteins in the body folded properly and is thought to compensate for variations that occur in proteins over time. In a study published in Science magazine, Dr. Nicolas Rohner and colleagues showed that stress…
- 19 days ago, 6 Apr 14, 5:28am -

What Makes Olga Run is an engaging, informative and inspiring read about the international track star Olga Kotelko. At the time of the writing of the book, Olga was holding 26 world records, and had over 600 medals won at throwing, sprint, and jump e…
- 17 hours ago, 24 Apr 14, 9:19am -

In this blog post, I review a number of studies that suggest that telling women to focus on their MRS degree (aka getting married) while in college can make women less interested in earning a STEM degree (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math). Why…
- 4 days ago, 21 Apr 14, 11:50am -

Bullying is a pervasive issue in schools today. This is one of two blog posts that will look at school aggression from the perspective of contemporary social psychology. In this post, I'll examine the role of groups in encouraging bullying. In my nex…
- 7 days ago, 18 Apr 14, 9:05am -

Where do all the studies come from? Behind every headline trumpeting a new finding in psychology, you can usually find an article in a peer-reviewed psychology journal. But how reliable are these findings? This is what many scientists have recently s…
- 11 days ago, 14 Apr 14, 12:55pm -

As a world without colors would be extremely boring, we are luckily able to perceive various different colors that enrich our environment. Recently, Keiko Ishii and colleagues found that the colors we prefer and use for our paintings vary systematica…
- 15 days ago, 9 Apr 14, 5:31pm -

Missing Link? Mississippi Floods, and a Great City Disappears
- 21 hours ago, 24 Apr 14, 5:00am -

Blood in Gourd 'Is Not from Beheaded Louis XVI'
- 21 hours ago, 24 Apr 14, 5:00am -

1800's Shipwreck Rediscovered Near Golden Gate Bridge
- 2 days ago, 23 Apr 14, 5:00am -

Archaeologists, Tribe Clash Over Native Remains
- 2 days ago, 23 Apr 14, 5:00am -

Ancient Chisel Used to Build Western Wall Found
- 2 days ago, 23 Apr 14, 5:00am -

Scientists report a breakthrough on understanding the demographic history of Stone-Age humans. A genomic analysis of eleven Stone-Age human remains from Scandinavia revealed that expanding Stone-age farmers assimilated local hunter-gatherers, and tha…
- 7 hours ago, 24 Apr 14, 7:18pm -

The cultural heritage of Syriac, an important language in the spread of early Christianity in the Middle East, is being preserved through the international collaboration.
- 8 hours ago, 24 Apr 14, 6:34pm -

In parallel with modern man (Homo sapiens), there were other, extinct types of humans with whom we lived side by side, such as Neanderthals and the recently discovered  Denisovans of Siberia. Yet only Homo sapiens survived. What was it in our geneti…
- 3 days ago, 22 Apr 14, 12:47pm -

Scientists have shown that anatomically modern humans spread from Africa to Asia and Europe in several migratory movements. The first ancestors of today’s non-African peoples probably took a southern route through the Arabian Peninsula as early as…
- 3 days ago, 21 Apr 14, 8:42pm -

The first view of the Black Death bacterium's entire family tree shows some how family members evolve to become harmful. The researchers showed that Yersinia pestis and Yersinia enterocolitica, two major disease-causing species, independently acquire…
- 3 days ago, 21 Apr 14, 7:19pm -

Combining historical language and ecological information, as well as genetic and archaeological data, scientists have identified Central-east Mexico as the likely birthplace of the domesticated chili pepper.
- 4 days ago, 21 Apr 14, 1:39pm -

A review of recent research on the domestication of large herbivores suggests that neither intentional breeding nor genetic isolation were as significant as traditionally thought. "Our findings show little control of breeding, particularly of domesti…
- 8 days ago, 17 Apr 14, 1:08pm -

Researchers have discovered a new section of the boundary wall of the ancient Roman port of Ostia, proving the city was much larger than previously estimated.
- 8 days ago, 17 Apr 14, 1:05pm -

Relationships between rare languages in the Colombian Amazon have been revealed by researchers. The only linguistic data available for Carabayo, a language spoken by an indigenous group that lives in voluntary isolation, is a set of about 50 words. T…
- 8 days ago, 16 Apr 14, 9:22pm -

The intestinal bacteria of present-day hunter-gatherers has for the first time been deciphered by an international team of researchers. Bacterial populations have co-evolved with humans over millions of years, and have the potential to help us adapt…
- 9 days ago, 15 Apr 14, 5:39pm -

We all know that, on some basic level, money is purely symbolic.  It only works because everyone collectively agrees to participate in the fantasy that a dollar bill is worth a dollar, whatever that is.  Moreover, most of our money these days is pu…
- 12 hours ago, 24 Apr 14, 2:00pm -

Anthropologist John Ziker decided to try to find out.  Ziker recruited a non-random sample of 16 professors at Boise State University and scheduled interviews with them every other day for 14 days.  In each interview, they reported how they spent t…
- 2 days ago, 23 Apr 14, 2:00pm -

This is a Pink Lady: 15 oz. gin, 4 dashes of grenadine, and an egg white. According to Shanna Farrell,  the Pink Lady was popularized in the ’50s.  Women were believed to have “dainty palates,” and so cocktails for women were designed to dis…
- 3 days ago, 22 Apr 14, 2:00pm -

“For many of us, quicksand was once a real fear,” write the producers at Radio Lab: It held a vise-grip on our imaginations, from childish sandbox games to grown-up anxieties about venturing into unknown lands. But these days, quicksand can’t e…
- 4 days ago, 21 Apr 14, 2:00pm -

Posts from Easters past: Easter in Japan The Commodification of Easter Festivities Giving it some Hip to the Hop Sexing It Up with Nibbles, Your Sexy Easter Honey Professional Wrestling does Easter (pictured) Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at…
- 4 days ago, 20 Apr 14, 5:00pm -

This chart comes from Chuck Marr at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.  As Marr explains: The United States is a relatively low-tax country, as the chart [above] shows.  When measured as a share of the economy, total government receipts…
- 6 days ago, 19 Apr 14, 2:00pm -

Flashback Friday. The word commodification refers to the process by which something that is not bought and sold becomes something that is.  As capitalism has progressed, more and more parts of our lives have become commodified.  Restaurants are the…
- 7 days ago, 18 Apr 14, 2:00pm -

At Junk Charts, Kaiser Fung drew my attention to a graph released by Reuters.  It is so deeply misleading that I loathe to expose your eyeballs to it.  So, I offer you this: The original figure is on the left.  It counts the number of gun deaths i…
- 8 days ago, 17 Apr 14, 2:00pm -

Writer and director Elena Rossini has released the first four minutes of The Illusionists.  I’m really excited to see the rest.  The documentary is a critique of a high standard of beauty but, unlike some that focus exclusively on the impacts of…
- 9 days ago, 16 Apr 14, 2:00pm -

Source: Deviant Art. Have a scholar we should commemorate? Send us a cool pic and we will! Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College and the author of Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions, with Myra Marx Ferree. You can follo…
- 9 days ago, 15 Apr 14, 4:00pm -

A newly identified genetic disorder associated with degeneration of the central and peripheral nervous systems in humans, along with the genetic cause, has been reported by researchers. By performing DNA sequencing of more than 4,000 families affecte…
- 10 hours ago, 24 Apr 14, 4:51pm -

Researchers describe a circuit in the brain of fruit flies that controls their daily, rhythmic behavior of rest and activity. They also found that the fly version of the human brain protein known as corticotrophin releasing factor is a major coordina…
- 10 hours ago, 24 Apr 14, 4:46pm -

Fairness is not always the most important priority for small retailers. In an international study, researchers found that some small retailers are less concerned about whether they are treated fairly by business suppliers than other factors, such as…
- 11 hours ago, 24 Apr 14, 3:33pm -

There may be an overreporting of attention problems in children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), simply because parents and teachers are using a misplaced basis for comparison. They are testing and comparing children with FASD with childr…
- 11 hours ago, 24 Apr 14, 3:27pm -

Dust off those Bic ballpoints and college-ruled notebooks: research shows that taking notes by hand is better than taking notes on a laptop for remembering conceptual information over the long term. "Our new findings suggest that even when laptops ar…
- 12 hours ago, 24 Apr 14, 2:28pm -

A national response to the epidemic of prescription opioid overdose deaths was outlined by leaders of agencies in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The commentary calls upon health care providers to expand their use of medications to…
- 12 hours ago, 24 Apr 14, 2:28pm -

A new ultrasound device that could help identify arterial plaque that is at high risk of breaking off and causing heart attack or stroke has been developed by researchers. The prototype device has performed well in laboratory testing, but the researc…
- 12 hours ago, 24 Apr 14, 2:26pm -

A relationship between motor skill deficiencies and the severity of the symptoms of autism spectrum disorder has been found in very young children. The findings indicate that development of motor skills should be included in treatment plans for young…
- 12 hours ago, 24 Apr 14, 2:24pm -

A person, who acts immorally or recklessly but is “lucky” by escaping dire consequences, is judged less harshly than an “unlucky” person, even when both have committed the same act. "Moral luck" is a term used in philosophy that describes sit…
- 1 day ago, 24 Apr 14, 2:12am -

In the aftermath of war, communities who continue to experience repeated violence could have a major escalation in rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and severe distress, suggests new research. Investigators conducted a survey in 2004 to…
- 1 day ago, 24 Apr 14, 2:12am -

Yesterday I wasted several hours, thanks to Oracle Corporation. When I turned my computer on, there was a message from Java bugging me to install a security update. These updates are a pain, and usually I try to ignore them and hope they go away afte…
- 6 days ago, 19 Apr 14, 4:29am -

The confrontation in eastern Ukraine (or Novorossia, as southern and eastern Ukraine were called during the days of the Russian Empire) between pro-Russia activists and the central government in Kiev has escalated dramatically over the weekend. The h…
- 11 days ago, 13 Apr 14, 6:10pm -

At one point last week, as I was developing the Aeon article, a process that required multiple ‘back-and-forths’ between me and the editor Ed Lake, Ed asked me whether I could provide an example of a state without Sacred Lands, to illustrate the…
- 17 days ago, 8 Apr 14, 2:55am -

When Russia annexed Crimea in March, American policymakers were taken by surprise. They shouldn’t have been, argued the political theorist John J Mearsheimer in a New York Times op-ed. After all: ‘Mr Putin’s behaviour is motivated by the same g…
- 21 days ago, 4 Apr 14, 2:37am -

At the end of my second blog on democracy and oligarchy in Ukraine, I came to a gloomy conclusion that there would be no real effort to curb the power of the oligarchs, and that it will be the common Ukrainians who will have to bear the costs of refo…
- 24 days ago, 1 Apr 14, 2:47am -

Read my latest articles:Interview with a former CIA Clandestine Service officer - Pursuit MagazineWhy political difference shouldn’t threaten friendship – Huffington Post 
- 23 days ago, 2 Apr 14, 2:41am -

My newest article has been published in Pursuit Magazine on detecting deception during an investigative interview. For this article I asked three world class scholars of deception,  ”how do you catch a liar?” See it at: http://pursuitmag.com/de…
- 2 Dec 13, 11:32pm -

Hello! OK—so I still have a few dedicated subscribers; this message is for you. 1st I am now a Huffington Post blogger.2nd Pursuit Magazine (a publication for professional investigators) has asked me to become a regular contributor.3rd I’…
- 18 Nov 13, 7:57pm -

Sociologist Elijah Anderson influenced criminology with his descriptive theory of the code of the street. In a nutshell the code contends that social economic conditions isolate poor inner-city neighborhoods giving rise to the code of the street—no…
- 13 Nov 13, 3:09am -

Nope, I haven’t disappeared but my personal blog is no longer a priority. Rather, I’m spending my free-time investigating stories worth telling and writing them well. My latest story is titled The Dark Net: The New Face of Black Markets and Organ…
- 1 Oct 13, 8:52pm -

The sighting of gravitational waves from the universe's birth is a great advance – but if confirmed might also be the ultimate setback for cosmology (full text available to subscribers)
- 7 hours ago, 24 Apr 14, 7:00pm -

For the first time, a particular type of exploding star has been found perfectly arranged so that a galaxy in front of it acts like a magnifying glass
- 8 hours ago, 24 Apr 14, 6:00pm -

Early hunter-gatherers didn't adopt farming practices as they spread through Europe, although some had sex with farmers and joined their groups
- 8 hours ago, 24 Apr 14, 6:00pm -

These tiny plant shards were locked inside glass instantly during an asteroid impact. Could Martian life be preserved in the same way?
- 9 hours ago, 24 Apr 14, 5:15pm -

Science won't just fix impaired senses – it can give us new ones, too (full text available to subscribers)
- 9 hours ago, 24 Apr 14, 4:55pm -