Psychology

This Philosopher Is Challenging All of Evolutionary Psychology

It’s not often that a paper attempts to take down an entire field. Yet, this past January, that’s precisely what University of New Hampshire assistant philosophy professor Subrena Smith’s paper tried to do. “Is Evolutionary Psychology Possible?” describes a major issue with evolutionary psychology, called the matching problem. The field of evolutionary psychology is no stranger to…

Tech News Ryan F. Mandelbaum

Why Does Spending Money Feel So Good?

Assuming that you don’t have an infinite supply of money—assuming your supply of money is, like most personal money-supplies, limited, and closely-hoarded, and essential to your survival—then diminishing what you have in any way should be a painful undertaking. And yet blowing tons of cash on stuff you don’t need tends generally to feel great,…

Tech News Daniel Kolitz

Why Do We Use Dark Humor to Deal With Terrifying Situations?

Life’s hard for the humorless—loved ones die, hurricanes and infections ravage the planet, and all they can do is sit around and grieve about it. Some of us, meanwhile, watching our houses burn down and our spouses succumb to hazily-understood pancreatic ailments, can at least leaven the pain with a well-timed joke. As distraction, coping…

Tech News Daniel Kolitz

Why Do Cute Things Make Me Mad?

A couple years back, a team of research psychologists ID’d a phenomenon called “cute aggression,” wherein the sight of something cute (an infant, a puppy) paradoxically yields statements like ‘I just want to kill it!!’ The term pinpointed something universal and more or less instantly went viral, and a couple of years later a team…

Tech News Daniel Kolitz

A New False Memory Study Suggests People Can’t Tell What’s Real

A new study is the latest to show how indistinguishable false memories are from real ones. People who watched someone else recount a supposed recollection were unable to tell that the memory was false with any better accuracy than chance, the study found. Moreover, in many cases the people describing their own memories had been…

Health Ed Cara

Which Superstitions Are Based on Facts?

Superstitions—passed down through generations, or developed spontaneously on certain online forums—gobble up thousands of productive hours yearly. But it would be wrong to say that all that time spent avoiding ladders or cracks in the sidewalk is wasted. For one thing, we’d probably just be spending that time on some equally useless activity, like working.…

Tech News Daniel Kolitz

Freud‘s First Trailer Blends Psychoanalysis With the Occult

In Netflix’s upcoming series Freud, Sigmund Freud isn’t yet the infamous father of psychoanalysis, but rather a young man struggling to find a place in the world for his nascent radical theories about the inner workings of the human mind. Freud’s first trailer introduces us to the young Sigmund (Robert Finster) just as he’s begun…

Trailers Charles Pulliam-Moore

Is the “Death Drive” Real?

Statistically, at least ten people reading this article will be dead within sixteen months. I just made that statistic up, but if you felt a little flutter of excitement at the prospect of your imminent demise, you might be verifying the death drive—Freud’s theory, postulated in 1920, that each consciousness is dually saddled with a…

Tech News Daniel Kolitz

Why Am I Suddenly Afraid of Flying?

For years you’ve flown without issue—no breathing exercises, no pills—but suddenly you can’t board without picturing catastrophe. No one you know has recently died in a crash; you have not, to your knowledge, dwelled excessively on those Boeing catastrophes; and yet suddenly, out of nowhere, you’ve become the kind of person who’s afraid to fly.…

Tech News Daniel Kolitz

The Quiet Joys of ASMR Porn

I am watching a video of the outward crevice of a human’s large intestine. The cavity, exposed in the cold light of day, is isolated from the owner’s body; it pulsates to what sounds like wet dog food squishing in the palm of a hand. It is, at turns, grotesque, then abstract, suggestive of the…

Tech News Whitney Kimball

Why Does Time Slow Down and Speed Up?

Time contracts, expands, swallows and spits you out into this instant, which feels—depending on your perspective—either impossibly remote from where you were two years ago or barely removed from it at all. Flight delays, breakups, bouts of serious illness—all can bring you back to the high school classroom where it’s somehow slo-mo clock. You feel…

Tech News Daniel Kolitz

Researchers Create Trash-Talking Robot That Proves Machines Can Get Under Human’s Skin

Trash talk has long been an effective (but underhanded) tool when it comes to sports, gaming, and other competitive endeavors. But it’s been assumed that it’s a strategy that only works between humans who can deliver remarks with emotional weight. It turns out that’s not the case, as researchers from Carnegie Mellon University discovered after…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski

Research Shows That Doing a Bad Job Wrapping Presents Will Make a Person Like Your Gift Even More

The hectic holidays are approaching, but according to a study shared in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, you shouldn’t waste your time immaculately wrapping the gifts you bought everyone—they’re more inclined to like what’s inside if the presents are wrapped poorly. The common assumption is that if someone were to hand you a gift that…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski

Okay, But Can We Teach the Rats to Race?

Scientists have previously run experiments teaching rats how to play hide-and-seek. Now researchers at the University of Richmond in Virginia have managed to teach 17 rats how to drive tiny electric cars around in pursuit of food, with the rats apparently loving it. The study involved six female and 11 male rats, who the researchers…

Biology Tom McKay

The Woman Who Turned Psychological Testing Into a Science

“I don’t have time for this,” psychologist Anne Anastasi reportedly said in 1987, before hanging up the phone on a call from Ronald Reagan’s White House. The call, according to Harold Takooshian, a psychology professor at Fordham University, was to inform her that she had won the first National Medal of Science for psychology. It…

Health Sarah Wells

Is the Butterfly Effect Real?

Is the 2004 Ashton Kutcher vehicle The Butterfly Effect a good movie? Definitely not, no—but try telling that to me at age thirteen. And then wrap your head, once more, around the fact that if you had told me that, you might have set in motion the utter annihilation of the human race—the whole notion…

Tech News Daniel Kolitz

Can You Forget Things on Purpose?

Memory’s ungovernable, a ceaseless shaming pain: you’re either scrambling to retrieve it (rooting around for keys, or the name of some acquaintance) or you’re scrambling away from it, wishing it wouldn’t toss up, for the seven hundredth time, this or that miserable incident (deaths, bad dates, awkward elevator talk, trauma beyond the scope and tone…

Tech News Daniel Kolitz

A Narwhal-Beluga Hybrid, Hong Kong Protests, and Jean-Luc Picard: Best Gizmodo Stories of the Week

Another week, another crisis—The U.S. is reportedly launching cyberattacks on assets tied to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, including a group of hackers believed to spy on ships passing through the Gulf of Oman and on computer-controlled rocket and missile launchers, in retaliation for a series of allegedly Iranian attacks on tankers passing through the region.…

Tech News Tom McKay

The Gentle Side of Twitch

“Hi! I see you, but I’m focused on the reading right now. I can chat during the next break!” This message popped up on the stream from Ryan Blake Hall, better known as Storyteller Mars on Twitch. He was busy reading from Henry Wysham Lanier’s A Book of Giants: Tales of Very Tall Men of…

Tech News Nicole Carpenter

Image: British Pest Control Association/ProFlowers/Ryan F. Mandelbaum

MDMA Made Older Mice Start Socializing Like Teenagers

You might think of young brains as soft clay that can take on new shapes in response to various inputs. But as time passes, the clay hardens and is less workable—and like clay, older brains can be less likely to change in response to new situations. Scientists doing research in mice have realized this analogy…

Biology Ryan F. Mandelbaum

This Philosopher Is Challenging All of Evolutionary Psychology

Why Does Spending Money Feel So Good?

Why Do We Use Dark Humor to Deal With Terrifying Situations?

Why Do Cute Things Make Me Mad?

A New False Memory Study Suggests People Can’t Tell What’s Real

Which Superstitions Are Based on Facts?

Freud‘s First Trailer Blends Psychoanalysis With the Occult

Is the “Death Drive” Real?

Why Am I Suddenly Afraid of Flying?

The Quiet Joys of ASMR Porn

Why Does Time Slow Down and Speed Up?

Researchers Create Trash-Talking Robot That Proves Machines Can Get Under Human’s Skin

Research Shows That Doing a Bad Job Wrapping Presents Will Make a Person Like Your Gift Even More

Okay, But Can We Teach the Rats to Race?

The Woman Who Turned Psychological Testing Into a Science

Is the Butterfly Effect Real?

Can You Forget Things on Purpose?

A Narwhal-Beluga Hybrid, Hong Kong Protests, and Jean-Luc Picard: Best Gizmodo Stories of the Week

The Gentle Side of Twitch

MDMA Made Older Mice Start Socializing Like Teenagers

Students Are Now Renting Smart Glasses to Cheat on Exams

Roborock F25 GT Cordless Vacuum and Mop Hits Its Lowest Price in Spring Sale, 20,000Pa Cleaning Power Without the Premium Price Tag

New Details Add a Bizarre Twist to NASA’s First ISS Medical Evacuation

ASUS TUF 27” HDR Gaming Monitor Briefly Returns to Black Friday Pricing for a Limited Run in Amazon’s Big Spring Sale

‘Speed Racer’ Is Getting a Glorious New Remaster

Dreame Pocket Pro Hair Dryer Is Now Over 3x Cheaper Than Dyson’s Deal in Amazon’s Prime-Exclusive Spring Sale

Pompeii Study Confirms Roman ‘Wine’ Ritual Previously Known Only From Texts

JBL Clears Out a 5.0-Channel Compact All-in-One Soundbar at a Record Low Beyond Its Portable Speaker Deals

Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Review: A Solid 2-in-1 Laptop With Some Glaring Flaws

Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

Sonos Era 100 SL Review: The Cheapest Way Into Wired Sonos Sound

Asus ROG’s Massive Swift OLED Gaming Monitor Epitomizes Excess in the Best Way

The Ikea Varmblixt Smart Lamp Fills a Donut Hole in My Life

Nothing Headphone A vs. Headphone 1: Which Pair of ANC Wireless Headphones Wins?

Asus ROG’s Cetra Open Wireless Gaming Earbuds Might Be Better Than Wearing a Headset

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