Human Behavior

Do peoples' personalities change after 30? They can, according to researchers who examined 132,515 adults age 21-60 on the personality traits known as the "Big Five": conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness and extraversion.

There is more to beauty than meets the stranger's eye, according to results from three studies examining the influence of non-physical traits on people's perception of physical attractiveness. The results show that people perceive physical appeal differently when they look at those they know versus strangers.

When you nod your head to signal approval or shake your head to show disapproval, it’s not just sending a message to others – you may also be influencing yourself. A new study showed that these simple movements influenced people’s agreement with an editorial they heard while nodding or shaking their head.

A study in the December 2001 issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry by Rosemary Purcell and her colleagues looked at the characteristics of male and female stalkers. The authors found that female stalkers were different from male stalkers in several ways.

Researchers reviewing several studies on autobiographical memory and happiness have found that human memory is biased toward happiness and that mild depression can disrupt this bias for good over bad.

Affect Theory helps us understand babies, and helps us do more effective psychotherapy.

Many who have analyzed the shocking pictures of American soldiers torturing prisoners in Iraq have stated that all of us are capable of such behavior. I'm not sure that's true. Studies actually indicate that some people don't follow orders under extreme circumstances. Now if we can identify these people in advance...