Stories by Wray Herbert

People who lack restraint seek out colleagues and friends who are not impulsive

Many soldiers' cases of post-traumatic stress disorder may in fact stem from troubled civilian life

Certain types of fidgeting give away a person's trustworthiness

The goal of building a safe artificial heart has frustrated bioengineers for more than four decades. At last, an end could be in sight

How we can train elderly drivers to be safer

Why we tend to predict rosy times ahead

When to engage with negative feelings and when to ignore them

Our dueling existential minds influence our beliefs and behaviors in different ways

One genetic variant leads to the best and worst outcomes in kids

Fibbing is tough on the brain. New strategies expose liars by adding to the load

The difficulty of a task stretches out our perception of time

Our mental maps of risk and safety rely too heavily on imaginary boundaries

How imagining a different past increases our appreciation for the present

Scientists have long thought that delayed gratification requires a sense of self, but experiments with dogs show otherwise

Polishing your self-image with counterfeit goods may lead to lying, cheating and cynicism

Setting your mind on a goal may be counterproductive. Instead think of the future as an open question

When women approach men instead of vice versa, the gender difference in selectivity disappears

We think of people with autism as having a deficit in cognitive processing--but their distractibility could also result from having enhanced perceptual capabilities

Even films that are historically inaccurate can be a valuable teaching tool

Ancient fears of filth and contagion may explain why we think of morality in black and white

Learning to categorize the life on our planet is surprisingly difficult for the human mind

We admire self-discipline, but could too much control be a bad thing?

An explanation for synchronous swimming and other group rituals