https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Every day, we quietly judge the people around us. Did that co-worker split the credit fairly? Did a neighbor return a lost package? Did someone cut in line or respect the rules? https://phys.org/news/2026-01-moral.html Social Sciences Mon, 19 Jan 2026 12:54:18 EST news688049641 Liberals and conservatives both oppose censorship of children's literature—unless the writing offends their own ideology, new Cornell research finds. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-political-views-sex-violence-literary.html Education Thu, 02 Oct 2025 13:30:04 EDT news678630334 More and more people are turning to large language models like ChatGPT for life advice and free therapy, as it is sometimes perceived as a space free from human biases. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds otherwise and warns people against relying on LLMs to solve their moral dilemmas, as the responses exhibit significant cognitive bias. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-moral-advice-large-language-hidden.html Social Sciences Tue, 08 Jul 2025 09:28:11 EDT news671185686 Experiments conducted by UC Merced researchers find that people who perform good deeds are far more likely to be thought of as religious believers than atheists. Moreover, the psychological bias linking kindness and helpfulness with faith appears to be global in scale. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-people-associate-kindness-religious-belief.html Social Sciences Fri, 09 Aug 2024 05:50:01 EDT news642401112 A new UBC study has revealed regular seasonal shifts in people's moral values. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-seasonal-shifts-moral-values.html Social Sciences Tue, 06 Aug 2024 13:20:01 EDT news642168627 How confident are you in your judgments and how well can you defend your opinions? Chances are that they will change under the influence of a group of avatars in a virtual environment. Scientists from SWPS University have investigated the human tendency to be influenced by the opinions of others, including virtual characters. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-avatar-scientists-minds-virtual-environments.html Social Sciences Mon, 18 Mar 2024 16:04:03 EDT news629996641 A new study, published in PLOS ONE, has uncovered a remarkable connection between individuals' musical preferences and their moral values, shedding new light on the profound influence that music can have on our moral compass. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-uncovers-link-musical-moral-compass.html Social Sciences Thu, 30 Nov 2023 11:23:03 EST news620565781 Misinformation is a key global threat, but Democrats and Republicans disagree about how to address the problem. In particular, Democrats and Republicans diverge sharply on removing misinformation from social media. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-democrats-republicans-sharply-attitudes-misinformation.html Social Sciences Mon, 06 Nov 2023 12:19:25 EST news618495563 A study recently published in Psychological Science reveals that when people repeatedly encounter headlines about corporate wrongdoing, they view the wrongdoing as less unethical and are more likely to believe the headlines are true. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-headlines-wrongdoing-perception-moral-offense.html Social Sciences Tue, 25 Jul 2023 11:31:56 EDT news609503513 Recent U.S. elections have raised the question of whether "microtargeting," the use of extensive online data to tailor persuasive messages to voters, has altered the playing field of politics. https://phys.org/news/2023-06-microtargeting-people.html Political science Tue, 20 Jun 2023 17:10:07 EDT news606499801 Do you feel like society's morals have declined recently? You are far from alone, and may be suffering from a "psychological illusion," according to new research on Wednesday. https://phys.org/news/2023-06-morals-declining.html Social Sciences Wed, 07 Jun 2023 11:59:52 EDT news605357984 Human responses to moral dilemmas can be influenced by statements written by the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, according to a study published in Scientific Reports. The findings indicate that users may underestimate the extent to which their own moral judgments can be influenced by the chatbot. https://phys.org/news/2023-04-chatgpt-statements-users-moral-judgments.html Social Sciences Thu, 06 Apr 2023 11:00:24 EDT news599991812 Moral dilemmas—balancing one right action against another—are a ubiquitous feature of 21st-century life. However unavoidable, though, they are not unique to our modern age. The challenge of accommodating conflicting needs figured as prominently in the lives of our human ancestors as it does for us today. https://phys.org/news/2022-10-human-cognitive-enable-moral-tradeoff.html Social Sciences Mon, 10 Oct 2022 16:06:41 EDT news584636795 A map created by researchers at the University of Cincinnati can predict with surprising accuracy how the racial makeup of neighborhoods will change. https://phys.org/news/2022-07-machine-learning-algorithm-racial-makeup-neighborhoods.html Social Sciences Thu, 14 Jul 2022 17:14:44 EDT news577037679 A disbelief in human evolution was associated with higher levels of prejudice, racist attitudes and support of discriminatory behavior against Blacks, immigrants and the LGBTQ community in the U.S., according to University of Massachusetts Amherst research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. https://phys.org/news/2022-04-disbelief-human-evolution-linked-greater.html Social Sciences Mon, 04 Apr 2022 16:22:41 EDT news568308155 From attacks on synagogues and mosques to the COVID-era spike in anti-Asian sentiment, the past couple of years, unfortunately, have seen no shortage of acts of hatred. https://phys.org/news/2021-07-group-moral-values-likelihood-hate-motivated.html Social Sciences Wed, 28 Jul 2021 12:17:21 EDT news546693433 Cities around the world were turning off their lights Saturday for Earth Hour, with this year's event highlighting the link between the destruction of nature and increasing outbreaks of diseases like Covid-19. https://phys.org/news/2021-03-cities-worldwide-earth-hour.html Environment Sat, 27 Mar 2021 15:05:26 EDT news536076319 A new study suggests that, while atheists and theists share moral values related to protecting vulnerable individuals, atheists are less likely to endorse values that promote group cohesion and more inclined to judge the morality of actions based on their consequences. Tomas Ståhl of the University of Illinois at Chicago presents these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on February 24, 2021. https://phys.org/news/2021-02-atheists-believers-moral-compasses-key.html Social Sciences Wed, 24 Feb 2021 14:00:03 EST news533376805 A trio of researchers in the Department of Psychology at the University of Southern California has conducted two international sample studies to highlight gender differences in moral judgments within cultures. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Mohammad Atari, Mark Lai, and Morteza Dehghani describe their two studies and what they learned from them. https://phys.org/news/2020-10-international-samples-large-scale-gender-differences.html Social Sciences Wed, 21 Oct 2020 09:41:10 EDT news522492066 Anthropologists at the University of Oxford have discovered what they believe to be seven universal moral rules. https://phys.org/news/2019-02-moral-world.html Social Sciences Tue, 12 Feb 2019 07:42:43 EST news469179750 People using smartphones are more likely to make rational and unemotional decisions compared to PC users when presented with a moral dilemma on their device, according to a new study from City, University of London. https://phys.org/news/2017-05-smartphones-moral-decisions.html Social Sciences Thu, 25 May 2017 06:26:15 EDT news414912258 People value their moral reputation to such an extent that they will work to behave well and cooperate with each other rather than risk being judged negatively for their actions, according to new Stanford research. https://phys.org/news/2017-04-people-morals-cooperated-groups.html Social Sciences Fri, 07 Apr 2017 05:55:25 EDT news410763319 A research team led by mathematician Tatsuya Sasaki from the University of Vienna presents a new optimal theory of the evolution of reputation-based cooperation. This team proves that the practice of making moral assessments conditionally is very effective in establishing cooperation in terms of evolutionary game theory. 'Our study also demonstrates the evolutionary disadvantage of seeking reputation by sanctioning wrongdoers,' says Sasaki. The results of the study were published in Scientific Reports. https://phys.org/news/2017-02-judgment-optimal-theory-evolution-cooperation.html Social Sciences Tue, 07 Feb 2017 10:07:11 EST news405684344 What motivates people to contribute to trustful moral judgment, which is a public good yet tends to be costly? This is 'the moral free rider problem'. Mathematician Tatsuya Sasaki from University of Vienna and colleagues Isamu Okada and Yutaka Nakai in Japan have put forth a theoretical resolution. The study has been published online in Biology Letters, a journal published by The Royal Society. https://phys.org/news/2016-07-moral-free-riders-cooperate.html Social Sciences Wed, 06 Jul 2016 10:44:32 EDT news387020660 Northwestern University's Ken Forbus is closing the gap between humans and machines. https://phys.org/news/2016-06-structure-mapping-enables-humans-moral-dilemmas.html Computer Sciences Tue, 21 Jun 2016 15:04:09 EDT news385740236 Simply telling people that their opinions are based on morality will make them stronger and more resistant to counterarguments, a new study suggests. https://phys.org/news/2016-05-opinion-simply-based-morality.html Social Sciences Tue, 31 May 2016 08:00:08 EDT news383900275 New research by an archaeologist at the University of York suggests that betrayals of trust were the missing link in understanding the rapid spread of our own species around the world. https://phys.org/news/2015-11-betrayals-rapid-human-species-world.html Archaeology Tue, 24 Nov 2015 19:10:01 EST news367601221 (Phys.org)—A large team of researchers with members from institutions in the U.S., Australia, Canada and the U.K. has conducted a study that they claim shows that moral judgments by people in communities are influenced by distance, time and authority figures. In their paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the team outlines theories on moral behavior in society and then the study they undertook in attempting to show whether such theories are right or not. https://phys.org/news/2015-08-moral-judgment-locality-authority-figures.html Social Sciences Wed, 05 Aug 2015 06:33:01 EDT news357975167 (Phys.org) —A team of researchers with members from the U.S., Germany and the Netherlands has uncovered some new ideas about the nature of morality by using a smartphone app. In their paper published in the journal Science, the researchers describe how they enlisted a large group of people to serve as volunteers in a morality experiment, and what they learned as a result. Jesse Graham, of the University of Southern California offers a Perspective piece in the same journal issue. https://phys.org/news/2014-09-smartphone-app-experimenters-aspects-morality.html Social Sciences Fri, 12 Sep 2014 10:10:02 EDT news329734619 (Phys.org) —Scientists as eminent as Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan have long believed that humans will one day colonise the universe. But how easy would it be, why would we want to, and why haven't we seen any evidence of other life forms making their own bids for universal domination? https://phys.org/news/2013-08-silence-skybut.html Astronomy Mon, 26 Aug 2013 07:40:06 EDT news296719427