A 2006 field study found people paid nearly three times more at an anonymous…
The watching eye changes how people behave, even when they know no one real is watching—suggesting our kindness may be more malleable than we'd like to admit.
Relationships & Society
Relationships, identity and social behaviour, including how institutions and technologies reshape the way people live together.
625 articles · Relationships & Society
A 2007 study measured people’s blood pressure while they discussed a problem with…
The friend who hurts you predictably is less damaging than the one whose kindness keeps you guessing.
An engineer in a Coventry lab traced a colleague’s sense of being watched and a…
Most "haunted" buildings aren't; they're just vibrating at the frequency that makes human eyeballs resonate.
The men who consume the most information — podcasts queued, newsletters unread…
The endless consumption of information has become a substitute for the harder work of actually thinking.
We treat happiness as one thing, a good mood to maximise, but psychologists find…
The pursuit of feeling good and the search for meaning are not the same thing—and only one of them survives the initial rush.
A 1998 study found that people who openly self-promoted were rated as more…
The competence boost from self-promotion comes with a social cost that cuts deepest for women, even when they're telling the truth.
A 2009 study found that four-person groups solved a decision task more accurately…
Diversity of thought outperforms social comfort, yet groups rarely recognize when discomfort signals better outcomes.
People who feel a small wave of relief when a social plan gets cancelled aren’t…
Feeling lighter when a social plan falls through isn't a sign of avoidance or dislike. It's an honest signal from a nervous system that needs more recovery time between interactions than the culture is willing to name.
Is all that scrolling really dulling your attention? Researchers combed 71 studies…
A meta-analysis covering 98,299 people finds short-form video use tracks with weaker attention and self-control. The strongest links show up not in hours logged, but in the pull to keep going.
Living near the sea is one of the better-evidenced ideas in wellbeing research: a…
The ocean's mental health benefits aren't folklore anymore—new research reveals who gains most, and why childhood beach days echo through adulthood.
A 2024 review of the love-languages theory found that most people rate all five…
A beloved relationship theory turns out to be wrong in almost every measurable way.
Adults who take the same walk at the same time every evening may not be creatures…
The nightly walk at the same time looks like rigidity from the outside. Inside the nervous system, it is one of the most reliable ways researchers have found to steady mood, protect the aging brain, and give the mind permission to finally release the day.