Shankar Vedantam

Novices play better golf when they have expensive brand name equipment, research shows. Brand name products alleviate some performance anxiety but brands have no effect on better players.

What are the health implications of dancing? New social science research shows that dancing in synchrony with others increases people's threshold for dealing with pain.

A leak of names from one of the world's most famous "adultery" sites, Ashley Madison, got social scientists thinking. They've recently tried to see if people who like to cheat in their marriages also have a propensity to cheat at work.

There's an old saying: If you want to get something done, ask a busy person. Researchers find that busy people are more motivated to complete tasks after missing a deadline than their non-busy peers.

The sharing economy is making online transactions far more personal, which can lead to some unintended consequences.

Research shows that our biases can actually skew our perception of time. For police officers, this means some are at a greater risk for shooting unarmed black men.

Research indicates when a partner dies happy and contented, that stays with the other person a long time, but when a partner dies unhappy and in pain, those feelings stay with the other one, too.

A new research study finds that students exposed to their very best peers became discouraged about their own abilities and performance — and were more likely to drop out.

Research shows that bettors are drawn to certain games not because of financial motives but because they get enjoyment out of them.

Research finds that when you put powerful people together in a group, individuals tend to vie for the same level of authority and deference they receive outside the group.

Social science research examines how the mood of gamblers can change the way they think about risk. New Yorkers buy more lottery tickets when the weather is good and when their sports teams win games.

New research looks at how gender shapes competitions. Multiple strands of social science research suggest highly competitive settings are likely to dissuade qualified women from tossi...

Analysis explores the relationship among college football, binge drinking and sexual violence on campus. It suggests that reports of rape increase 41 percent on college football home games.

Social scientists have been studying Valentine's Day gifts, and research shows: The more you love someone, the more likely you might be to give selfish gifts.

Confessing embarrassing information is often better than withholding it. Research finds that people distrust withholders of details more than they dislike revealers of unsavory information.

A political fundraising experiment reveals: Small donors are more likely to open their wallets for political campaigns when they're told other donors who support a rival candidate are being generous.

Self-made billionaires are bigger philanthropists than those who inherit their wealth, research says. That might explain why the self-made wealthy plan to donate much of their wealth to charity.

Do stereotypes about religious people undermine their performance in certain tests? Studies have found Christians tend to underperform non-Christians when it comes to tests of logical ability.

An experiment, conducted at bars in Kansas, suggests that hierarchical thinking comes more easily to people than egalitarian thinking. This may have implications for the topic of income inequality.

Research out of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania suggests that people see New Year's Day, their birthdays and even the start of a new month or week as "temporal la...