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Psychology

Listening to ketamine

The fast-acting drug offers a new way to treat depression and fathom its origins. Recent approval of a nasal spray promises to expand access, but much remains unknown about long-term use and the potential for abuse.

The power of brands, conscious and unconscious

Economists explore the complex forces that shape what ends up in your shopping cart and how that might change in the online marketplace 

Why forgetting may make your mind more efficient

Evidence builds for ways that the brain actively erases memories

Reaching out to touch virtual reality

New technologies mean we won’t just see and hear digital information. We’ll also feel it.

A long-overlooked brain region may be key to complex thought

The thalamus has traditionally been viewed just as the brain’s sensory relay station. But it may also play an important role in higher-level cognition, MIT’s Michael Halassa explains in a Q&A.

The mind of an anthill

Can we use the tools of psychology to understand how colonies of social insects make decisions?

Top 10 secrets about stress and health

The strain of life — from everyday conflicts to major losses — can stretch our well-being to the breaking point. Here’s what scientists know, and still don’t know, about the stress-illness connection.

The music moves us — but how?

The author of This Is Your Brain on Music talks about the very human ways the mind and body keep the beat.

Is it time to bring data to managing?

Trendy office layouts. Performance reviews that crush morale. There’s plenty of evidence on how to get the best out of workers, but businesses often ignore it.

What will it take to fix work-life balance?

It’s time to toss out the idea that dedicated professionals must always be on the clock or that retail shops will founder if they standardize employee hours, legal scholar Joan Williams says in a Q&A. The data tell a different tale.

Bad bosses: Dealing with abusive supervisors

From the boardroom to the basketball court, some managers rely on berating and bullying employees. Researchers have learned one thing: It doesn’t work.

Barista’s burden

The dark side of “service with a smile”

Feeling the pressure

How we want to be perceived influences how we act, and that presents persuasion opportunities. But the social factors involved are not easy to unravel.

Nudging grows up (and now has a government job)

Ten years after an influential book proposed ways to work with — not against — the irrationalities of human decision-making, practitioners have refined and broadened this gentle tool of persuasion

Peering into the meditating mind

Some people swear by it, but studies of mindfulness have a long way to go

Do yourself a favor

Thinking of others enhances your well-being, while selfishness just adds to stress, studies show

A robotic window on the human mind

Engineers aim to build machines that put people at ease. The effort reveals truths about ourselves.

Making the case against memories as evidence

Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus has shown that our recall can be woefully unreliable. Slowly but surely, the legal system — and more of her peers — are taking her findings into account.

Rebranding placebos

Harnessing the power of sham therapies for real healing might require a new lexicon

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