New research links the equipping of mobile fruit and vegetable stands with wireless banking devices programmed to accept food stamps to the buying of more healthy foods by people with low incomes. This is the finding of a survey of 779 shoppers in the Bronx—a New York City borough with many low-income communities—who bought food at 4 of the city’s nearly 500 mobile sellers of fresh produce, known as Green Carts. Some of these food carts were licensed to handle electronic bank transfers (EBTs), the technical term for the transactions, while others were not.

Few parents want their children to hear them arguing, but since conflict is a normal part of any relationship, it can be hard to shield little ones from every spat. That's OK, as long as parents handle disagreements in a constructive way, says University of Arizona researcher Olena Kopystynska. Kopystynska, a graduate student in the UA's Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, studies conflict and conflict resolution. In a new paper, forthcoming in the Journal of Family Psychology, she looks at how the way parents handle conflict...

Taking a few minutes to jot down your thoughts and feelings using a technique called “expressive writing” can free up brain space and helps the mind function more efficiently, according to a new study led by psychology researcher Hans Schroder. These findings were published online September 8 in the journal Psychophysiology.

Many websites and applications these days are designed to trick you into doing things that their creators want. Here are some examples from timewellspent.io:

It takes more than religious fanaticism or hatred to make someone take innocent lives, but recognise the true roots of ISIS-inspired terror and they can be addressed.

If someone told you, in all seriousness, that they talk to invisible beings who control the universe, you’d probably back away slowly, nodding and smiling, while desperately looking for the nearest exit or escape route. If this person then said they wanted to be in charge of your life, you’d probably do the same, but more urgently, and with a view to finding the nearest police officer. And yet, this happens all the time. Arch Brexiter, unlikely Tory leadership candidate and human Pez-dispenser Jacob Rees-Mogg recently blamed his extreme and unpleasant views on his Catholicisim...

We tend to pay more attention to information that confirms our own beliefs and biases, and we are prepared to lose money to stick to our guns. By Jessica Hamzelou.

People who tend to trust their intuition or to believe that the facts they hear are politically biased are more likely to stand behind inaccurate beliefs, a new study suggests. And those who rely on concrete evidence to form their beliefs are less likely to have misperceptions about high-profile scientific and political issues, said Kelly Garrett, the lead researcher and a professor of communication at The Ohio State University.

Perhaps it is best to beat yourself up a little the next time you fail at a task. New research led by a University of Kansas marketing professor has found emotional responses to failure rather than cognitive ones are more effective at improving people's results for the next time they tackle the next related task.

New research helps to explain why the belief in election fraud is common in the United States, even though research has failed to find convincing evidence ...

It’s becoming increasingly evident that, for some people, trolling isn’t just playing an asshole on the internet.

From Yelping to dating, there’s a better way. By Tom Vanderbilt.

Only recently did I work up the nerve to go to a diner or coffee shop alone. Even now, when I do, I'll sit there hunched over my sandwich or cup of tea and cast furtive glances at all the twosomes around me, knowing exactly what they're thinking: What. A. Loser. She can't even find someone to keep her company for half an hour?

When you attempt to envision a writer, I imagine many of you see a quirky recluse, hunched over a desk in some cabin, crumpled paper strewn about as they obsessively work on the next great American novel. But writing is so much more. Prose is thought put to page, which makes all of us writers, even if we don’t have the chops to tangle with Faulkner. In most cases, writing is most useful as a tool for thinking, expression, and creativity; cabin-dwelling novelists be damned.

Psychologists have long known that people tend to favor their own group over others, a social phenomenon known as ingroup bias. But new research provides evidence that atheists are motivated to buck this trend in an attempt to override the stereotype that they are immoral. Psychology researchers from Ohio University found that Christians demonstrated an ingroup bias towards other Christians in an economic game but atheists did not have an ingroup bias towards other atheists.

The designation should speed the drug's approval as a prescription medicine, which could happen as soon as 2021.

In the fall of 1958 Theodore Kaczynski, a brilliant but vulnerable boy of sixteen, entered Harvard College. There he encountered a prevailing intellectual atmosphere of anti-technological despair. There, also, he was deceived into subjecting himself to a series of purposely brutalizing psychological experiments—experiments that may have confirmed his still-forming belief in the evil of science. Was the Unabomber born at Harvard?

Dating sites claim to winnow a few ideal suitors out of a nigh-infinite pool of chaff. But the matches these algorithms offer may be no better than picking partners at random, a study finds. Researchers asked about 350 heterosexual undergrads at Northwestern University to fill out questionnaires assessing their personalities and romantic preferences. They were quizzed about things like self-esteem, goals, values, loneliness...

Every fall, college freshmen begin the familiar tradition of establishing friendships with classmates in their dormitories. But little do they realize how much choosing the right friends – notably ones with empathy – could be beneficial during stressful times, a new Stanford study says. “The transition to college can be tumultuous,” said Jamil Zaki, an assistant professor of psychology at Stanford and co-author of the study. “Whom you end up making friendships with can play a significant role...

Until 3:35 p.m. on June 15, 1977, Maryann Gray was happy. She was twenty-two, and had just decided to take a leave of absence from Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio, where she was pursuing a master’s degree in clinical psychology. Graduate school had been her mother’s idea, and Gray was unpleasantly surprised by how scientific the program turned out to be. Inside the front cover of her statistics textbook was a squashed bug, which she had circled and labelled “Maryann at the end of Stat.”

A Hungarian-born Canadian physician, Dr. Gabor Maté specializes in the study and treatment of addiction and trauma. He is well known for his firmly held belief in the connection between mind and body health. Dr. Maté’s bestselling books include the award-winning In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction. Rather than offering quick-fix solutions to complex issues, Dr. Maté weaves together scientific research, case histories and his own insights to present a broad perspective.

Ugly People of the World Unite", is the unofficial motto of the club, which has 270 members. Among the club's role models are Angela Merkel, the new German chancellor, whose own lack of regard for her looks has attracted much criticism, the Duchess of Cornwall and the singer, Janis Joplin. (2005)

On the day that Aurora theater shooter James Holmes was convicted on two dozen counts of first-degree murder, a 24-year-old man opened fire at few states to the east in Chattanooga, Tennessee, leaving five military personnel dead. That same day Dylann Roof was given a trial date. The coincidence of tragedy seemed to send a message: we’re producing twenty-something, male mass killers faster than we can prosecute them.

uperheroes, science fiction, and horror have long-suffered from “genre bias,” but Netflix thinks its algorithm can turn skeptics into, in the words of Stan Lee, true believers. “Genres are just wrappers,” the company declared Tuesday. Netflix tracks dozens and dozens of micro-genres that inform its algorithmic recommendation engine, enabling the streaming service to suggest to its 104 million viewers new programming they will probably enjoy, based on their viewing history, but didn’t know about.

Unfortunately, it’s no contest. Here’s what psychology tells us about life under a leader totally indifferent to the truth.

Despite our need for external motivation, it’s all you.

A growing number of mental-health experts are taking a proactive approach to suicide prevention—and they have a bold goal. 

When people leave the military, they leave a support group. Without a tribe, it's too easy to feel lost. Even though Frank Grun needed only five more years in the U.S. Air Force to qualify for a full pension, he quit because of the toll he felt the job was taking on him. He saw other men who were divorcing, drinking too much and getting depressed.

In a recent study, researchers looked into how people react to robots that mess up. Surprisingly, participants liked the faulty robots much more than those who performed without a hitch.

You might be surprised at what the research says about how art changes consciousness and the functioning of the brain.

It’s called sidonglobophobia, and it’s a lot more emotionally fraught than it sounds.

New research suggests that nearly everyone will develop a psychological disorder at some point in their lives—but for most, it’s temporary

The story of how one metric has changed the way you see the world

Seeing things that are hidden; failing to see things in plain sight. How magic exploits the everyday weirdness of perception. By Vebjørn Ekroll.

Religious people "cling" to certain beliefs in the face of evidence because those views are closely tied to their moral compasses, new studies have suggested. Dogmatic individuals hold confidently to their faith even when contradicted by experts because those beliefs have "emotional resonance," researchers said. In contrast, militant atheists struggle to see anything positive about religion because their brains are dominated by analytical thinking, scientists found.