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 -

Alberto Acerbi's excellent blog hosts a noteworthy discussion of Claidière, Scott-Phillips and Sperber's recent PTRS paper on cultural attraction. Alex Mesoudi, Thom Scott-Phillips and Dan Speber joined the discussion; Alberto concluded it.
- 26 days ago, 18 Jun 14, 8:49am -

A very interesting comparison between crows and humans in a new (free access) paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B entitled "Of babies and birds: complex tool behaviours are not sufficient for the evolution of the ability to create a novel cau…
- 29 days ago, 15 Jun 14, 10:37am -

One of the most salient paradoxes in the study of kinship systems is their sheer analytical complexity, from the point of view of an external observer, and simultaneously the ease by which those very same systems are assimilated by the natives themse…
- 62 days ago, 13 May 14, 10:22am -

Applications are invited for a Departmental Lectureship in Cognitive Anthropology, effective from 1 September 2014, tenable until 30 September 2015. The post is based at the School of Anthropology, Banbury Road, Oxford, UK. The primary function of t…
- 63 days ago, 12 May 14, 2:30pm -

Here is a challenge to standard views about the evolution of linguistic generativity: ""Combinatorial Communication in Bacteria: Implications for the Origins of Linguistic Generativity" by Thomas C. Scott-Phillips, James Gurney, Alasdair Ivens, S…
- 79 days ago, 26 Apr 14, 9:57am -

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…
- 89 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…
- 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…
- 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…
- 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…
- 16 Jan 14, 3:35pm -

Over 600 (as of this writing) neuroscientists from around the world, but with a very large proportion representing Europe, have written an open letter expressing concern with the Human Brain Project (HBP) and its cousin the U.S. BRAIN Initiative. It…
- 40 mins ago, 14 Jul 14, 1:26pm -

Phew!! I just submitted my abstract for the Comparative Physiology meeting that will be held this October. Judging from the preliminary program, it is going to be an exciting meeting! Here is a description of the meeting from the American Physiologic…
- 1 day ago, 13 Jul 14, 6:20am -

Have you had a chance to see this video from Discovery News showing the flashy ‘disco clam’? A graduate student at UC Berkeley, Lindsey Dougherty, unraveled the mystery of this party-like effect. The clams actually have tiny silica spheres (340…
- 3 days ago, 11 Jul 14, 5:13am -

A recent article published in the American Journal of Physiology reviewed how the brain regulates feeding behaviors. Humans are not the only species to eat food in spurts we like to call meals. Research suggests that this behavior may actually aid…
- 3 days ago, 11 Jul 14, 4:26am -

Ticks are blood-sucking arthropods that can act as vectors for various diseases in both animals and humans. A recent article published in Frontiers in Zoology summarizes findings that suggest ticks may also be considered venomous ectoparasites. F…
- 8 days ago, 6 Jul 14, 10:01pm -

Nowadays, smartphones appear to play an inevitable role both in our work and private life. However, when it comes to work-related use, smartphones can hamper recovery and thus, pose a threat to our well-being. In this blog-post, I review recent studi…
- 5 days ago, 9 Jul 14, 7:43pm -

In this blog post we discuss legal, attitudinal and motivational factors that explain why we use physical punishment with children, specifically: (1) the United States, unlike most other countries, does not legislate against it, (2) attitudes condoni…
- 9 days ago, 5 Jul 14, 7:57pm -

In new relationships, feelings of sexual desire for a partner come relatively easily. But, over time, partners’ sexual interests often change and it can be difficult for couples to keep the spark alive. In the beginning stages of relationships when…
- 13 days ago, 1 Jul 14, 7:36pm -

When I started incorporating cognitive paradigms into my research, I was looking for a book that would allow me to quickly navigate through cognitive theories and refresh my knowledge acquired in undergraduate cognitive psychology course. I was glad…
- 13 days ago, 1 Jul 14, 1:25pm -

In my last post I asked where the genes for psychological traits are, and argued that over the last two decades candidate gene studies have failed to identify genes that are reliably associated with complex behavioral phenotypes. In this post, I will…
- 18 days ago, 26 Jun 14, 8:51am -

Urban Aboriginal People Face Unique Health Challenges
- 4 days ago, 10 Jul 14, 5:00am -

Mobile Phone Bling May Be a Personal, But Also Cultural Thing
- 4 days ago, 10 Jul 14, 5:00am -

Chimpanzee IQ Starts in the Genes
- 4 days ago, 10 Jul 14, 5:00am -

200-Year-Old Bottle of Seltzer Found in Shipwreck
- 4 days ago, 10 Jul 14, 5:00am -

Korean Mummy's Hernia Diagnosed 300 Years Later
- 4 days ago, 10 Jul 14, 5:00am -

Sexual selection enhances opportunities to mate, the tail of male peacocks being an iconic example. Biologists have found that sexual selection and 'placentation' -- the formation of a placenta -- are linked. Describing the life histories of more tha…
- 5 days ago, 9 Jul 14, 6:04pm -

Scientists have recreated the walking gait of a 410-million-year-old arachnid, one of the first predators on land, based on fossil evidence. The scientists used the fossils -- thin slices of rock showing the animal's cross-section -- to work out the…
- 5 days ago, 9 Jul 14, 1:56pm -

Three geneticists at the forefront of human evolutionary genomics assess the changing state of the field and how we are moving closer to understanding the evolution of the human brain.
- 5 days ago, 9 Jul 14, 1:53pm -

Re-examination of a circa 100,000-year-old archaic early human skull found 35 years ago in Northern China has revealed the surprising presence of an inner-ear formation long thought to occur only in Neandertals.
- 7 days ago, 7 Jul 14, 7:24pm -

A unique archaeological find uncovered near the site of a Roman villa in Dorset could help to shed light on the rural elite of late-Roman Britain. The skeletal remains are thought to be unique as they are buried near the site of a Roman villa, making…
- 10 days ago, 4 Jul 14, 5:47pm -

Many traits unique to humans were long thought to have originated in the genus Homo between 2.4 and 1.8 million years ago in Africa. Although scientists have recognized these characteristics for decades, they are reconsidering the true evolutionary f…
- 11 days ago, 3 Jul 14, 6:23pm -

Several thousand years ago, the common ancestors of Han Chinese and Tibetans moved onto the Tibetan plateau, a low-oxygen environment that probably proved fatal to many because of early heart disease and high infant mortality. But a specific variant…
- 12 days ago, 2 Jul 14, 5:17pm -

Ancient Japanese gold leaf artists were truly masters of their craft. An analysis of six ancient Namban paper screens show that these artifacts are gilded with gold leaf that was hand-beaten to the nanometer scale. Researchers believe that the X-ray…
- 12 days ago, 2 Jul 14, 3:09pm -

Figuring out how to survive on a lean-season diet of hard-to-reach ants, slugs and other bugs may have spurred the development of bigger brains and higher-level cognitive functions in the ancestors of humans and other primates, suggests new research.
- 13 days ago, 1 Jul 14, 6:01pm -

Researchers have sketched out one of the greatest baby booms in North American history, a centuries-long 'growth blip' among southwestern Native Americans between 500 to 1300 A.D. It was a time when the early features of civilization -- including far…
- 14 days ago, 30 Jun 14, 8:41pm -

Thanks to Holly Robin at The Robin Head for this great comic on our obsession with a gender binary. Click over to read the whole thing or enjoy these two excerpted panels: Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College and the co-auth…
- 1 day ago, 13 Jul 14, 2:00pm -

Everyone! Well, almost. Andrew Cherlin and his colleagues report that 64% of women and 63% of men have had at least one child out of wedlock.  The dominance of non-marital births is true for everyone, except people with four-year college degrees.…
- 2 days ago, 12 Jul 14, 2:00pm -

Flashback Friday. The images below are all screen shots from the fantastic American Anthropological Association website on race.  They are designed to show how we take what is in reality a nuanced spectrum of skin color and turn it into racial cate…
- 3 days ago, 11 Jul 14, 2:00pm -

Last week CNN triumphantly reported that the job market has recovered to its 2008 peak.  Here’s the headline: Not so fast, though. Sociologist Philip Cohen observes that the real news is hidden in the fourth paragraph. There the author of the piec…
- 4 days ago, 10 Jul 14, 2:00pm -

The Nation sparked a robust discussion last week with its incisive online conversation, Does Feminism Have a Class Problem? The panelists addressed the “Lean In” phenomenon, articulating how and why Sheryl Sandberg’s focus on self-improveme…
- 5 days ago, 9 Jul 14, 2:00pm -

In the lasts 15 years, student debt has grown by over 1,000% and the debt held by public colleges and universities has tripled.  Where is the money going? The scholars behind a new report, Borrowing Against the Future: The Hidden Costs of Financin…
- 6 days ago, 8 Jul 14, 2:00pm -

Since their invention in 1913, and since this Kelvinator ad first ran in 1955, refrigerators became bigger, better, and went from a luxury to a necessity. It’s nearly impossible to imagine life today without having somewhere to store your vegetable…
- 7 days ago, 7 Jul 14, 2:00pm -

Thanks to Kris Straub at chainsawsuit. Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College and the co-author of Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
- 8 days ago, 6 Jul 14, 2:00pm -

Mean and median are two measures of “average.”  The mean is the average as we typically think of it: the sum of things divided by the total number of things.  The median, in contrast, is literally the number in the middle if we align all the q…
- 9 days ago, 5 Jul 14, 2:00pm -

Flashback Friday.   In his book by the same name, Michael Billig coined the term “banal nationalism” to draw attention to the ways in which nationalism was not only a quality of gun-toting, flag-waving “extremists,” but was quietly and rat…
- 10 days ago, 4 Jul 14, 2:00pm -

A decreased ability to identify odors might indicate the development of cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease, while examinations of the eye could indicate the build-up of beta-amyloid, a protein associated with Alzheimer's, in the brain, acco…
- 18 hours ago, 13 Jul 14, 7:55pm -

A noninvasive optical imaging device can provide early detection of changes that later occur in the brain and are a classic sign of Alzheimer's disease, according to preliminary results from investigators.
- 18 hours ago, 13 Jul 14, 7:55pm -

People with mobility impairments under age 65 have significantly higher rates of smoking than those without mobility impairments. Additionally, smokers with mobility impairments were less likely to attempt quitting than those without mobility impairm…
- 3 days ago, 11 Jul 14, 7:33pm -

Pornography triggers brain activity in people with compulsive sexual behavior -- known commonly as sex addiction -- similar to that triggered by drugs in the brains of drug addicts, according to a a new study. However, the researchers caution that th…
- 3 days ago, 11 Jul 14, 7:33pm -

Young adults who screened positive for a history of hazardous or binge drinking reduced their binge drinking by more than 50 percent after receiving mobile phone text messages following a visit to the emergency department, according to a study. Hazar…
- 3 days ago, 11 Jul 14, 5:28pm -

An 'expressive therapy' group intervention helps women living with HIV disclose their health status and improves their social support, self-efficacy and the safety and quality of their relationships, a study has shown. "Medication alone is totally in…
- 3 days ago, 11 Jul 14, 1:21pm -

The demonstration that astrocytes, the brain's most abundant cell type, participate in the formation of inhibitory synapses in the cortex suggests an important role for these cells in some neurological disorders. Astrocytes, named for their star-like…
- 3 days ago, 11 Jul 14, 1:21pm -

Women are more likely to wear a red shirt when they are expecting to meet an attractive man, relative to an unattractive man or a woman. But do women view other women in red as being more sexually receptive? And would that result in a woman guarding…
- 3 days ago, 11 Jul 14, 1:21pm -

A new ultrasound imaging technique has provided the first ever in vivo visualization of activity in the piriform cortex of rats during odor perception. This deep-seated brain structure plays an important role in olfaction, and was inaccessible to fun…
- 3 days ago, 11 Jul 14, 1:19pm -

Counselling and guidance techniques developed in the Western world may not be appropriate for many African countries, where cultural influences, government policies and the availability of resources can have significant implications for service deliv…
- 3 days ago, 11 Jul 14, 1:19pm -

Yesterday’s blog proposed that the most useful approach to understanding the evolution of large-scale complex societies is to view them through the lens of Cultural Evolution. To make this discussion more concrete, let’s look at a particular cult…
- 2 days ago, 13 Jul 14, 2:05am -

As the readers of this blog know, one of the central directions in my research has been understanding the evolution of large-scale, complex societies. Actually, it is the main question motivating this Forum. Now that I am back from my travels, I have…
- 3 days ago, 11 Jul 14, 3:56am -

I am back from my last travels within the fair island of Ireland. A lot of impressions, ideas, and topics to blog about. Unfortunately, experience shows that while I travel I simply don’t have the leisure to post. As a result, this blog has been sa…
- 7 days ago, 7 Jul 14, 3:54am -

As I more-or-less expected, my trip to Toulouse, Moscow, and St. Petersburg was too intense (and the internet connection too iffy) for me to be able to blog. Lots of new ideas, impressions, and topics to blog about, however. One of these is a walk I…
- 24 days ago, 20 Jun 14, 2:58am -

I’ve just returned from California, where I spent last two weeks. I dislike long-distance air travel, and when I do it, I try to hit as many birds with the same stone, so to speak. This means bunching up as many talks and visits as possible. On thi…
- 42 days ago, 2 Jun 14, 4:41am -

Read my latest articles:Interview with a former CIA Clandestine Service officer - Pursuit MagazineWhy political difference shouldn’t threaten friendship – Huffington Post 
- 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 UK Space Agency has revealed it is planning to build a spaceport somewhere in the UK before 2018 – and Scotland looks to be a prime location
- 1 hour ago, 14 Jul 14, 12:53pm -

Sex and science and rock & roll? Celebrating the diversity of human sexual organs at a world famous music festival is all in a day's work for Zoe Cormier
- 4 hours ago, 14 Jul 14, 10:07am -

Synthetic biologist Hamilton Smith wants to find the smallest genome that will keep a bacterium alive – and tidy up evolution's sloppy work
- 4 hours ago, 14 Jul 14, 10:00am -

Research provoked by the 9/11 attacks has given us the best hope yet of averting future Ebola epidemics in West Africa, says Curtis Abraham
- 7 hours ago, 14 Jul 14, 7:00am -

Your most intimate companion may be betraying you. Smartphones are lucrative targets for cybercriminals and keeping them true might not be as easy as we hoped (full text available to subscribers)
- 19 hours ago, 13 Jul 14, 7:00pm -