The Evolutionary Psychology of Disgust If you’re like me, you get grossed out by ticks. You are not a big fan of stepping in dog doo. And seeing someone throw up nearly makes you throw up yourself, even if you … Continue reading Psychological deterrent
Have Humans Evolved Beyond Nature—and Do We Even Need It? Such is the extent of our dominion on Earth, that the answer to questions around whether we are still part of nature, and whether we even need some of it, … Continue reading Are we denatured animals?
Why are pop songs getting sadder than they used to be? Are popular songs today happier or sadder than they were 50 years ago? In recent years, the availability of large digital datasets online and the relative ease of processing … Continue reading Positive vs negative emotions
A ‘Mic Drop’ on a Theory of Language Evolution Put your fingertips against your throat and say “abracadabra.” (Don’t whisper; it won’t work. Feign a phone call if you have to.) You should feel a buzzing—that’s your vocal folds vibrating … Continue reading Ancestors’ speech
Be Humble, and Proudly, Psychologists Say In their day jobs, research psychologists don’t typically need safety goggles, much less pith helmets or Indiana Jones bullwhips. There’s no rappelling into caves to uncover buried scrolls, no prowling the ocean floor in … Continue reading The habits of lost civilization
Xenophobic one minute, tolerant the next: humans are strange primates Whether they are proposing to build a wall or to exit an international coalition, populist politicians like to pitch themselves as keeping ‘outsiders’ at bay, and it clearly strikes a … Continue reading Group loyalty
The spirit of eugenics is still with us, as immigrants know to their cost Birth control. Intelligence tests. Town planning. Immigration controls. It’s striking how much of contemporary life has been shaped, at least in part, by the eugenics movement, … Continue reading The comeback of eugenics
