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Why Does a Thumbs-Up Gesture Mean “okay”?
Why does a thumbs-up gesture mean “okay”? : Any Roman gladiator movie worth its salt always includes the obligatory Colosseum combat scene where the fate of a beaten warrior is given by the thumbs-down signal - or the thumbs-up if he wants him to live. But is this really the origin of this signal ?
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Swearing – The Science Behind Why We Do it
Why the #*&! do we swear? We all let one slip occasionally-or maybe you express your expletives loud and proud. But does swearing serve any biological purpose, or is it simply a cultural taboo?
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Red Hot Science – Teams wearing red are more likely to win
Psychology 101 : “Teams wearing red are more likely to win” – True or apocryphal observation ?
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Being British and the Art of Queuing
Being British can be a complex business and there is one part of our identity that will confuse ‘Johnny Foreigner’ no end – Queuing!
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Medieval Democracy – 8 things you (probably) didn’t know about medieval elections
Democracy isn’t a word that you would ordinarily associate with the Middle Ages. The most common perception of this time is of Kings, Bishops, Feudal over lords and right at the bottom of the ‘social heap’, the peasant all of them with no say in government. In fact it turns out this is not overall an entirely true picture and that elections were a reasonably common occurrence
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What is Love ? (Scientifically Speaking)
What is Love ? : A very deep and involved question. However in this article we will restrict ourself to the scientific point of view. What is going on in our bodies, and brains when we fall in love or see the object of our inner most desires.
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Procrastination – The Science of ‘putting it off’
Let’s face it, we all procrastinate. We can put in a huge amount of effort in trying to avoid some other task. Sometimes more effort is put into avoiding something than just actually doing it.
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Predicting the social future – How do our Brains use Behavioural Social Clues ?
How do you know you’ll get a kiss? The cells that let brains predict the social future.
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Is there any scientific basis to the idea of “brainwashing” ?
If true, then the idea of “brainwashing” – that is convincing someone to do or behave in some way that they wouldn’t normally – has terrible consequences. It means people can claim they were under this infuence when they committed a crime and would mean that we are all vulnerabe to manipulation.
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Why do we blush?
Blushing is rather an odd physiological and psychological response to embarrassment or awkward social situations. Could there be any rational or logical explanation for this? What possible evolutionary reason could there be for such a strange phenomenon.
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Inside the head of a trainspotter
So here’s a question … Is there a brain region that makes someone a trainspotter? Just...
Read MoreDoes the Birth Order in Your Family Influence Your Personality ?
If you have siblings then you’ll be well aware of the pleasure and pain of growing up with both rivals and playmates. But does your order of birth affect your personality ? In this article we look at how birth order may shape your personality, behaviour and outlook on life.
Read MoreLearning to Let Go – Self Organising Systems
We like to think that things that work well come about through good organisation, rigorous planning and strong front led management. But is this really true ? If we look at nature there’s some excellent examples of self-organising systems that “just seem to work”. Can we learn from this and learn to “let go” ?
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Why did we swap hunter-gathering for farms and villages ?
About 10,000 years ago mankind began to abandon hunter-gathering as a way of life for farms and village life. We would naturally assume because it was better, more efficient, healthier. However there are puzzling problems with these reasons.
Read MoreCan Money Bring You Happiness ?
The age old question … Can money buy you happiness ? Psychologists think that they have a handle on it.
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