Many psychological theories suggest a link between self-regulation and identity, but until now a mechanistic account that suggests ways to improve self-regulation has not been put forth. The identity-value model (IVM) connects the idea from social psychology, that aspects of identity such as...

Long-established rituals in pre-existing cultural groups have been linked to the cultural evolution of group cooperation. Here we test the prediction that novel rituals – arbitrary hand and body gestures enacted in a stereotypical and repeated fashion – can impact intergroup bias in newly...

Empathy is considered a virtue, yet fails in many situations, leading to a basic question: when given a choice, do people avoid empathy? And if so, why? Whereas past work has focused on material and emotional costs of empathy, here we examined whether people experience empathy as cognitively...