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In 1986, the social psychologist David Sears warned his colleagues that their habit of almost exclusively studying college students was producing a strange and skewed portrait of human nature. He was neither the first to make that critique, nor the last: Decades later, other psychologists noted that social sciences tended to focus on people from WEIRD societies—that is, Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic. The results of such studies are often taken to represent humanity...

Down deep, people are basically good. That's a debatable proposition, but a widely held one , and it could be key to reducing the hostility toward perceived outsiders that is threatening the social fabric of the United States. Two Harvard University psychologists make that intriguing argument in a newly published study . They write that, while the familiar my-group-good, your-group-bad mindset may be firmly implanted in the human psyche, there's an even deeper belief that is far more...

Caring is a finite resource. I learned that from an Ojibwa second grader. At the beginning of the school year, David (not his real name) would jerk his neck back to flick the bangs out of his light brown eyes and write, “I love Mario. I love Mario. I love Mario” to the bottom of the page, and then grin and ask, “What do you think, Mr. Todd?” Some days, the page would be filled with, “I love soccer.” In early October, David stopped playing soccer at recess. When I asked him why, he walked...

LOS ANGELES , Oct. 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- First 5 LA, the California Community Foundation, The California Endowment, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation along with other local, state and nationally-recognized expert organizations today released a report to advance a comprehensive trauma and resiliency-informed approach in Los Angeles County . Building on research and the experience of experts from Los Angeles , the report defines trauma as the effects of a...

Einstein was Jewish, living in Germany as Hitler rose to power. Einstein despaired over the Nazi’s anti-Semitism and became an outspoken critic of the Nazi party, which only drew more attacks against him. Major newspapers published attack pieces against him. His house was raided while he was away. He even appeared on a pamphlet list of the enemies of Nazi Germany. The caption below his picture read, “Not Yet Hanged.” The harassment would ultimately prove to be too much. In 1933, Einstein...

Over this last weekend, 104 people in Youngstown, Ohio, climbed Mount St. Helens...virtually. At the start of the climb, on Friday, the weather was a balmy 70 degrees. By Sunday, it was a brisk 44. The elevation, however, remained at a steady 850 feet.

California is attempting to switch to a victim-centered approach for its sexually trafficked youngsters. But despite the passage of two important and well-intentioned new laws in the last two years, both of which affect youth who have been sexually exploited, change has not come easily or quickly. The initial goals for those who work with trafficked youngsters are in many ways heartbreakingly basic, said Diane Iglesias, senior deputy director of the state Department of Children and Family...

In their worst moments, the victims' faces are blue. Their skin is cool and damp to the touch. They are starving for oxygen. Pedora Keo, a critical-care nurse, sees them with distressing regularity: asthmatics in the thrall of attacks that can kill them or decimate their brains. Sometimes they fight while undergoing tracheal intubation and must be restrained. "They're panicking," says Keo, 42. "The look on their face is the fear of dying." Keo works at St. Mary Medical Center, an Art...

The shoplifter was caught red-handed at the California Walmart and taken to a back room by a store employee. Until recently, the next step might have been a call to the police, but, instead, the shoplifter was offered another option. He was shown a short video about how terrible a criminal record would be. He was told that if he confessed to his crime and agreed to participate in a privately run diversion program -- six hours of online behavior therapy---he could avoid arrest, a fine or...

BURLINGTON, Vermont — A group of more than a dozen addiction care providers gathered at a community health center one morning in September for their monthly meeting, where they chatted about their latest thorny problem. One of their patients had vanished. Again. The missing man, a 28-year-old whom I’ll call Tyler, was never an easy patient. On and off, he had used two to eight bags of heroin each day for the past seven years. He was strongly resistant to medication-assisted treatment (MAT),...

It is the latest fad in child welfare: Use a computer algorithm that supposedly can predict who will abuse a child. The term commonly used in the field is “predictive analytics.” A more accurate term would be “computerized racial profiling.” Child welfare is not the only field to embrace predictive analytics. It’s already in use – and proven to be racially biased – in law enforcement, for example. A few members of the New York City Council, including the chair of the council’s Technology...

Measuring the scale of America’s eviction problem has been a challenge—the data just isn’t available. While the U.S. Census bureau promised to start more diligently measuring evictions in 2017, there is not yet a national federal database. City-level records measure formal evictions, but are hard to access centrally, and miss off-the-books instances of (similarly damaging) forced moves. A new report from Apartment List aims to more accurately estimate the scope of the population at risk of...