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. Can you tell if you're working with a narcissist or a psychopath? A new study suggests that people's job choices may offer some clues, especially in fields built on leadership and persuasion such as business, politics, and law, where such darker traits are more common. Those in creative fields or nature-focused work may be more likely to encounter individuals with a Machiavellian way of thinking, according to findings published in Personality and Individual Differences. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-people-dark-personality-traits-naturally.html Social Sciences Sat, 18 Apr 2026 13:10:01 EDT news695314226 A psychological assessment test often used to evaluate psychopathy in Canadian criminal cases is unreliable and prone to unconscious bias on the part of expert witnesses, according to research from the University of Toronto Mississauga. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-psychopathy-canadian-courts-unreliable-prone.html Social Sciences Mon, 09 Feb 2026 19:20:04 EST news689857529 The federal government has just released an expert review to try and prevent bullying in schools. One of the greatest areas of concern is cyberbullying, which is alarmingly common among young people. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-screening-students-psychopathic-narcissistic-traits.html Social Sciences Tue, 21 Oct 2025 18:20:02 EDT news680263892 Aspiring autocrats are increasingly pressuring businesses to cooperate with their quest for wealth and power, such as by demanding they direct corporate funds towards their personal enrichment or fire personnel who are critical of them. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-businesses-moral-responsibility-autocrats.html Economics & Business Tue, 16 Sep 2025 10:56:04 EDT news677238962 This week, biologists discovered a new cellular organelle that's like "a new recycling center within the cell." Wild-growing tomatoes in the Galápagos are de-evolving. And geologists at the University of Southampton detected deep Earth pulses beneath Africa. Plus: Brain network functionality differs in people with psychopathic personality; sharks have a surprising vulnerability; and people with the highest measured IQ make better probabilistic predictions than people with the lowest IQ. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-saturday-citations-upside-sharks-brain.html Other Sat, 28 Jun 2025 08:00:02 EDT news670247025 She swiped right and wants to meet up. Soon, you've both had a few drinks and dim the lights. Suddenly, the mood shifts: She pulls back, puts a hand up, even says no. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-reveals-men-commit-sexual-assault.html Social Sciences Fri, 27 Sep 2024 12:22:04 EDT news646658521 As someone who has spent most of his professional life studying how children develop, I'm often asked by parents (especially moms) why children (especially boys) are prone to pick up the nearest stick, pencil, soft toy or even banana and turn them into weapons? https://phys.org/news/2024-09-boys-nerf-guns-fake-swords.html Social Sciences Thu, 12 Sep 2024 11:52:23 EDT news645360738 No means no when it comes to sex. But what happens when a woman makes a more passive response to a sexual advance? According to new research from Binghamton University, men differ in how they interpret these types of responses, and men who display hostile masculinity, known commonly as "toxic masculinity," tend to act on them regardless of whether or not they think it's consensual. https://phys.org/news/2024-05-men-toxic-masculinity-sexual-advances.html Social Sciences Wed, 29 May 2024 17:06:03 EDT news636221161 University of Queensland researchers have found there are two key reasons people choose to be anonymous online—self-expression or toxic behavior. https://phys.org/news/2024-01-anonymous-online.html Social Sciences Wed, 24 Jan 2024 12:00:02 EST news625320001 Entrepreneurs are often viewed as heroic individuals. It makes sense why: many of the innovations they present promise to change—improve—the world entirely. When they are winning, entrepreneurs become mini-celebrities, like Steve Jobs. When they are losing, however, stories can end in obscurity or notoriety, like for Elizabeth Holmes. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-narcissist-good-entrepreneurial-profitability-growth.html Social Sciences Thu, 09 Nov 2023 14:48:03 EST news618763681 You've been pressured to work overtime to finish a project. You won't get paid for the extra hours but you've been assured there will be kudos from senior management. There is—but only for your boss, who takes the credit. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-distrustful-self-serving-machiavellian-boss.html Social Sciences Fri, 21 Jul 2023 12:23:04 EDT news609160981 A new academic study examining the actions of Bernie Madoff, the New York banker behind the world's biggest Ponzi fraud, suggests companies do more to root out "corporate psychopaths" within their organizations to prevent financial ruin. https://phys.org/news/2023-05-exploring-psychopathic-traits-fall-madoff.html Social Sciences Wed, 17 May 2023 10:12:56 EDT news603537173 Many crimes are obvious, with those responsible soon apprehended, but with most sexual abuse (including child sexual abuse) remaining unreported or undetected, Griffith University researchers have investigated the characteristics of repeat offenders who evade detection for long periods of time. https://phys.org/news/2023-04-dodging-justice-characteristics-child-sex.html Social Sciences Wed, 26 Apr 2023 09:40:03 EDT news601720801 Wildlife conservation efforts could suffer because toxic online rows about trophy hunting are becoming increasingly abusive, ecologists have warned. https://phys.org/news/2023-03-toxic-twitter-abuse-skew-uk.html Plants & Animals Thu, 09 Mar 2023 00:00:01 EST news597513680 When you start to notice them, psychopaths seem to be everywhere. This is especially true of people in powerful places. By one estimate, as many as 20% of business leaders have "clinically relevant levels" of psychopathic tendencies—despite the fact as little as 1% of the general population are considered psychopaths. Psychopaths are characterized by shallow emotions, a lack of empathy, immorality, anti-social behavior and, importantly, deceptiveness. https://phys.org/news/2023-02-psychopaths-theyve-evolutionary-historyand.html Social Sciences Mon, 13 Feb 2023 12:30:01 EST news595511253 Have you ever suffered through tales of greatness from a self-absorbed "friend" who reminds you of Michael Scott from "The Office"—and not in a good way? Have you been betrayed by a colleague out of the blue, undermined on a project by the office mean girl, or had a work friendship dropped altogether without explanation? https://phys.org/news/2023-02-encounter-people-dark-personality-traits.html Social Sciences Wed, 08 Feb 2023 13:18:03 EST news595084681 Serial murderers aren't all the same. The FBI distinguishes between "disorganized" serial killers, who strike without planning or logic and often don't cover their tracks, and "organized" killers, who do plan and cover their tracks, often cleverly and meticulously. https://phys.org/news/2022-11-serial-killers-captured-popular-culture.html Social Sciences Tue, 01 Nov 2022 09:48:23 EDT news586514880 Living organisms, our planet and even the entire universe are getting ever more complex with time. "Complex" doesn't just mean "complicated": it means that the parts of a system interact in ways that give rise to properties that can sometimes be quite surprising. https://phys.org/news/2022-08-world-exponentially-complex.html Social Sciences Tue, 23 Aug 2022 10:02:03 EDT news580467721 It's difficult to scroll through social media right now without seeing at least one post mentioning Johnny Depp, Amber Heard and the defamation trial that began on April 11, 2022. https://phys.org/news/2022-05-johnny-depp-amber-heard-defamation-trial.html Social Sciences Tue, 31 May 2022 09:35:30 EDT news573208526 Everybody knows at least one. https://phys.org/news/2022-04-common-insult-middle-aged-male-uninterested.html Social Sciences Thu, 14 Apr 2022 08:09:59 EDT news569142589 Do you have any desire to stalk and kill an elephant? Probably not, but some relish the idea. https://phys.org/news/2022-02-psychology-trophy-people-animals-sport.html Other Fri, 04 Feb 2022 10:00:01 EST news563188852 In November 1888, fear stalked the streets of London as the Whitechapel Murderer claimed his latest victim. The unusually gruesome attacks had puzzled investigators, so police surgeon Dr. Thomas Bond examined the victims for clues that might help reveal the killer's identity. Dr. Bond concluded that the violence of these attacks meant that the Whitechapel Murderer—who would later become known as Jack the Ripper—was a reclusive man with a strong impulsive drive. https://phys.org/news/2021-10-psychopaths-fish-behaviors-benefit-aquaculture.html Plants & Animals Mon, 18 Oct 2021 08:20:01 EDT news553763165 From psychological thrillers to true crime stories, people who depart from social norms can be deeply fascinating. Psychopaths most of all. https://phys.org/news/2021-03-bullies-thieves-chiefs-hidden-psychopaths.html Social Sciences Tue, 16 Mar 2021 09:33:36 EDT news535106014 Mixed-gender software development teams perform better than male-only teams, with female developers helping offset psychopathic traits of some male developers, according to researchers at Lero, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Software. https://phys.org/news/2021-02-companies-women-team.html Social Sciences Fri, 26 Feb 2021 09:34:42 EST news533554477 Facebook users flipping through their feeds in the fall of 2016 faced a minefield of targeted advertisements pitting blacks against police, southern whites against immigrants, gun owners against Obama supporters and the LGBTQ community against the conservative right. https://phys.org/news/2020-03-politics-pandemics-russian-trolls-anger.html Social Sciences Thu, 26 Mar 2020 08:39:27 EDT news504430766 Most humans feel bad about hurting others. This so-called "harm aversion" is key to normal moral development and is reduced in violent antisocial individuals. Unfortunately, little is known about what makes people harm-averse, and medical practitioners lack effective pharmacological treatments for violence in psychopathic criminals characterized by a lack of harm aversion. https://phys.org/news/2020-03-rats.html Plants & Animals Thu, 05 Mar 2020 11:00:02 EST news502622337 Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale described the horror of the authoritarian regime of Gilead. In this theocracy, self-preservation was the best people could hope for, being powerless to kick against the system. But her sequel, The Testaments, raises the possibility that individuals, with suitable luck, bravery and cleverness, can fight back. https://phys.org/news/2019-10-oppressive-regime-conform-science.html Social Sciences Thu, 10 Oct 2019 10:16:34 EDT news489921368 After spending his early life suffering under the Nazis and then Stalin, the Polish psychologist Andrew Lobaczewski devoted his career to studying the relationship between psychological disorders and politics. He wanted to understand why psychopaths and narcissists are so strongly attracted to power as well as the processes by which they take over governments and countries. https://phys.org/news/2019-09-pathological-power-danger-narcissists-psychopaths.html Political science Thu, 19 Sep 2019 10:00:01 EDT news488104908 A life sentence in many states rarely means offenders will spend a lifetime behind bars. In fact, offenders sentenced for murder served just 15 years on average before initial release from state prison, according to a recent Bureau of Justice Statistics report using national-level data. https://phys.org/news/2018-12-criminal-history-strong-indicator-future.html Social Sciences Tue, 18 Dec 2018 14:06:42 EST news464364394 If, like Rip Van Winkle, you've been asleep for the last decade and have just woken up, that flip phone you have has become super-popular among retro technologists and survivalists alike, and, oh yeah, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is either going to kill you or save you. https://phys.org/news/2018-07-culture-embedding-ai.html Social Sciences Tue, 10 Jul 2018 09:50:01 EDT news450434798