Hacker News with Generative AI: Human Behavior

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 4 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 7 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 15 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 24 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 31 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 33 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 45 days ago | 2 comments

Sitters and Standers (pudding.cool)
Start →

Human Behavior, Social Commentary, Design, User Experience

426 points by feross 47 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 48 days ago | 1 comments

A unified account of why optimism declines in childhood (nature.com)

Psychology, Childhood Development, Human Behavior

10 points by therabbithole 53 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 58 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 65 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 75 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 95 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 104 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 118 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 118 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 119 days ago | 32 comments

The layers of strategic thinking behind our everyday conversations (optimallyirrational.com)
One of the points I made in Optimally Irrational is how incredibly good we are at solving the complex problems we face in our lives. We are often oblivious to the feats we are achieving. There is hardly a better example than something we do every day: talking to each other.

Cognitive Science, Communication, Human Behavior, Decision Making

15 points by yamrzou 130 days ago | 0 comments

Why do people believe true things? (conspicuouscognition.com)

Cognitive Science, Psychology, Human Behavior

50 points by Michelangelo11 153 days ago | 56 comments

"Does astrology work? We tested the ability of 152 astrologers" (threadreaderapp.com)

Astrology, Science, Research, Human Behavior

141 points by agluszak 159 days ago | 4 comments

To Avoid Thinking Hard, We Will Endure Anything–Even Pain (psychologytoday.com)

Psychology, Cognitive Science, Human Behavior

14 points by EgoIsMyFriend 161 days ago | 5 comments

People's moral values change with the seasons (psych.ubc.ca)