Hacker News with Generative AI: Human Behavior

Study: People select feedback to flatter others, except when they dislike them (phys.org)
People generally try to make other people feel good about themselves, but not when they dislike them. That's the finding of a new study by psychologists at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania investigating the extent to which people promote "positive self-views" for total strangers.
Psychology, Social Science, Human Behavior
5 points by PaulHoule 3 days ago | 0 comments
Mathematicians uncover the logic behind how people walk in crowds (news.mit.edu)
Next time you cross a crowded plaza, crosswalk, or airport concourse, take note of the pedestrian flow. Are people walking in orderly lanes, single-file, to their respective destinations? Or is it a haphazard tangle of personal trajectories, as people dodge and weave through the crowd?
Mathematics, Human Behavior, Pedestrian Dynamics, Crowds
51 points by geox 11 days ago | 19 comments
Excessive Criticism Is a Sign of Internal Conflict (kupajo.com)
Excessive criticism is a red flag that signals internal conflict.
Psychology, Human Behavior, Communication
8 points by kolyder 14 days ago | 2 comments
People are just as bad as my LLMs (wilsoniumite.com)
Surprising? Ok, maybe not in retrospect. So what if humans who can’t distinguish two TTS voices have a bias toward the sample presented to them on the right hand side of the screen. Indeed, “preferring stuff on the right hand side” has even been studied [1].
Artificial Intelligence, Human Behavior, Bias
203 points by Wilsoniumite 25 days ago | 164 comments
Elon Musk and Spiky Intelligence (natesilver.net)
Like a lot of successful people, he’s world-class in some dimensions of intelligence but deficient in others.
Elon Musk, Intelligence, Success, Human Behavior
5 points by doener 33 days ago | 3 comments
Physical attractiveness outweighs intelligence in partner selection (psypost.org)
Women and their parents report that intelligence is more important than physical attractiveness in a long-term partner, yet when forced to choose, they both favor a more attractive mate—even when the less attractive option is described as more intelligent.
Psychology, Relationships, Human Behavior, Gender Studies
54 points by handfuloflight 44 days ago | 44 comments
The human mind is in a recession (ft.com)
The human mind is in a recession.
Economics, Psychology, Human Behavior
45 points by anjel 47 days ago | 51 comments
Incised artefacts from the Middle Palaeolithic and human behavioural complexity (springer.com)
In recent years, archaeological research has demonstrated the presence of abstract non-utilitarian behaviour amongst palaeolithic hominins, fuelling discussions concerning the origin and implications of such complex behaviours.
Archaeology, Palaeolithic, Human Behavior, Science
3 points by benbreen 47 days ago | 0 comments
Emergence of collective oscillations in human crowds (nature.com)
Dense crowds form some of the most dangerous environments in modern society1. Dangers arise from uncontrolled collective motions, leading to compression against walls, suffocation and fatalities2,3,4.
Crowd Dynamics, Safety, Physics, Social Science, Human Behavior
95 points by shalg 55 days ago | 40 comments
We're performing for an audience of machines (christopherireland.substack.com)
We are kept angry, reactive, and sure we’re right. Because that reaction is profitable and mutes our power.
Social Media, Psychology, Human Behavior
22 points by berkburb 56 days ago | 5 comments
Knowing less about AI makes people more open to using it (theconversation.com)
The rapid spread of artificial intelligence has people wondering: who’s most likely to embrace AI in their daily lives? Many assume it’s the tech-savvy – those who understand how AI works – who are most eager to adopt it.
Artificial Intelligence, Human Behavior, Technology
103 points by botanicals6 68 days ago | 82 comments
Total Isolation: What Happens to Your Brain After 30 Days Spent Alone (2019) (inverse.com)
Imagine being confined to a small, dark room, with no social interaction whatsoever for 30 days. Not many people would jump at this opportunity. But, in November 2018, a professional US poker player, Rich Alati, bet $100,000 that he could survive 30 days alone and in total darkness.
Social Experiment, Psychology, Human Behavior, Isolation
11 points by squircle 69 days ago | 1 comments
Scientist discover that AI has developed an uncanny human-like ability (psypost.org)
Recent research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found that large language models, such as ChatGPT-4, demonstrate an unexpected capacity to solve tasks typically used to evaluate the human ability known as “theory of mind.”
Artificial Intelligence, Science, Human Behavior
9 points by geox 80 days ago | 6 comments
Testosterone eliminates strategic prosocial behavior in healthy males (2023) (nature.com)
Humans are strategically more prosocial when their actions are being watched by others than when they act alone.
Science, Human Behavior, Biology, Psychology
13 points by Jimmc414 84 days ago | 4 comments
Why Do Some People Look Like Their Dogs? (nautil.us)
The resemblance isn’t just a comical coincidence.
Human Behavior, Animals, Psychology
14 points by dnetesn 91 days ago | 2 comments
How Did the "Smile" Become a Friendly Gesture in Humans? (scientificamerican.com)
Human Behavior, Evolution, Communication, Psychology
6 points by thunderbong 100 days ago | 1 comments
The Paradoxical Slowness of Human Behavior (caltech.edu)
Caltech researchers have quantified the speed of human thought: a rate of 10 bits per second. However, our bodies' sensory systems gather data about our environments at a rate of a billion bits per second, which is 100 million times faster than our thought processes.
Science, Psychology, Human Behavior, Neuroscience
11 points by belter 107 days ago | 10 comments
The Red Beads Experiment (2019) (medium.com)
“A bad system will beat a good person every time.”
Social Experiments, Psychology, Human Behavior
52 points by kiyanwang 110 days ago | 25 comments
Human Interaction Is Now a Luxury Good (nytimes.com)
In part of her new book, “The Last Human Job,” the sociologist Allison Pugh shadowed an apprentice hospital chaplain, Erin Nash, as she went through her day.
Sociology, Human Behavior, Luxury Goods, Books
8 points by mooreds 121 days ago | 2 comments
Sitters and Standers (pudding.cool)
Start →
Human Behavior, Social Commentary, Design, User Experience
426 points by feross 124 days ago | 246 comments
Why do we kiss? 'I am not sure we have anything close to an explanation' (theguardian.com)
We do it sitting in a tree, under the mistletoe, at midnight to ring in the new year. In fairytales, the act transforms frogs into princes and awakens heroines from enchanted slumber. We make up with it, seal with it, and – in Romeo Montague’s case at least – die with it.
Human Behavior, Social Norms, Cultural Practices, Anthropology
7 points by n1b0m 125 days ago | 1 comments
A unified account of why optimism declines in childhood (nature.com)
Psychology, Childhood Development, Human Behavior
10 points by therabbithole 129 days ago | 4 comments
Personality Basins (near.blog)
Personality basins are the mental model that I use to reason about humans within their environment. They are an elucidating way to think about many concepts: from modelling why people are they way they are, how they change over time, how mental illnesses and addiction function along with how we should look for their cures, and how the attention economy optimizes itself to consume all of your free time.
Psychology, Human Behavior, Mental Models, Addiction, Attention Economy
166 points by qouteall 134 days ago | 111 comments
Time alone heightens 'threat alert' in teenagers – even when on social media (cam.ac.uk)
People in their late teens experience an increased sensitivity to threats after just a few hours left in a room on their own – an effect that endures even if they are interacting online with friends and family.
Psychology, Social Media, Teenagers, Human Behavior
5 points by gnabgib 142 days ago | 1 comments
Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds (newyorker.com)
The vaunted human capacity for reason may have more to do with winning arguments than with thinking straight.
Cognitive Psychology, Persuasion, Human Behavior, Argumentation
95 points by rbanffy 152 days ago | 86 comments
People think they already know everything they need to make decisions (arstechnica.com)
The world is full of people who have excessive confidence in their own abilities. This is famously described as the Dunning-Kruger effect, which describes how people who lack expertise in something will necessarily lack the knowledge needed to recognize their own limits.
Psychology, Cognitive Bias, Human Behavior
24 points by thunderbong 172 days ago | 3 comments
Task-Switching Experiment (2015) (psytoolkit.org)
The reality is that you can argue that people always multi-task in some way. After all, we always monitor our environment to some degree, no matter what. For example, no matter how deeply you concentrate on doing a task, if you hear someone shout "fire", you will process that information and act on it.
Psychology, Experiments, Human Behavior
54 points by dang 181 days ago | 15 comments
How We Sort the World (mitpress.mit.edu)
Despite the vast diversity and individuality in every life, we seek patterns, organization, and control. Or, as cognitive psychologist Gregory Murphy puts it: “We put an awful lot of effort into trying to figure out and convince others of just what kind of person someone is, what kind of action something was, and even what kind of object something is.”
Psychology, Cognitive Science, Categorization, Social Psychology, Human Behavior
43 points by r721 194 days ago | 19 comments
Avoidance Mapping: What It Is and Where It Fits in the Cartography Cube (geoawesome.com)
“… we all try to steer clear of certain places and people, whether we’re aware of it or not.” (Source)
Cartography, Data Visualization, Mapping, Spatial Analysis, Human Behavior
25 points by bryanrasmussen 194 days ago | 9 comments
Social Initiation (socialcommunication.truman.edu)
We teach our children that making friends is easy: you just walk up to any kid on the playground and say, “My name is [whatever], do you want to play?” And if you’re four or five years old, this works pretty well. But it’s a lot more complicated when you’re a grown-up.
Social Skills, Psychology, Human Behavior, Socialization
112 points by yamrzou 195 days ago | 32 comments