Cooperation and Competition in Intercultural Interactions

Are team players more cooperative when they can relate to their teammates? New research conducted by Drs. David Matsumoto and Hyi Sung Hwang now relates the behavioral ability to cooperatively interact with people to cultural differences between the players. In this study, US born Americans played a modified Prisoner’s Dilemma game in same sex dyads…

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The Pursuit of Ignorance

 What does real scientific work look like? Neuroscientist Stuart Firestein, professor at Columbia University, implies that Ignorance is far more important to discovery than knowledge. Firestein gets to the heart of science as it’s really practiced and suggests that we should value what we don’t know — or “high-quality ignorance” — just as much as…

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Empathy, Empowerment and Teenagers

As most of us know either from our own kids or interaction with other’s kids, teenagers can be moody, confusing and seem to lack empathy.  How can we cultivate sensitivity in our teens, especially teen boys? New research published in Developmental Psychology,  shows that biology, not parenting, is to blame for insensitive and selfish behavior…

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Dogs Experience Complex Emotions Too

Is man’s best friend a complex bundle of emotions? Pet owners would all like to be able to have a better understanding of their pet’s feelings, right? Well now they can. The New York Times reports on a study by Gregory Berns,  professor of neuroeconomics at Emory University, and his colleagues who delve into the…

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