Across 61 societies, people were more comfortable with infection-risky contact, such as sharing a water bottle, and more likely to touch in greeting, the more they valued the other person; culture and disease history mattered mainly for close partners.
Five experiments with 2,800 people found that positive secrets, such as a planned proposal or surprise gift, boost feelings of energy compared with the same good news shared openly, because people choose to keep them freely.
Across four studies, "humorbragging" made job candidates seem both warmer and more competent: a humorbragging resume drew more recruiter interest, and humorbragging entrepreneurs secured more funding than those using other humor.
Across three UK studies with about 1,400 participants, loneliness was tied to conspiracy thinking, which in turn predicted support for norm-breaking political action and, in one experiment, actually refusing to pay 5 pence of VAT on a study payment.
Simulating a 35% cut in trucking costs from autonomous trucks, economists estimate interstate exports would rise by the equivalent of 40.3% of GDP in Mississippi and 5.9% in Florida, with the biggest dollar gains in California, Texas and Illinois.
In more than 800,000 transactions from 60 Norwegian pizza restaurants, the chance of a tip rose and then fell with party size and with time at the table, and both patterns shifted with the bill, customer ratings and whether alcohol was ordered.
After California added $2 a pack in 2017, the share of households buying cigarettes fell from 10.6% to 4.2% by 2022, but low-income households that kept buying saw yearly spending climb from $651 to $1,343.
In more than 40,000 US home sales, listings with more photos showing plants sold for higher prices, drew more likes and tours and sold slightly faster, even after accounting for the house, its neighborhood, photo quality and the website's own price estimate.
In four field studies with a major music label, video ads generated by AI from just a song and its album cover got 26% more clicks on TikTok than human-designed ads, matched them on Meta, and cost 98% less to make.
A Nature Reviews Psychology review finds people rate their own authenticity above others' and expect it to keep rising. The evidence fits authenticity as self-enhancement and self-ownership far better than accurate self-knowledge.