Researchers use robot to determine how human strangers develop trust

What can a wide-eyed, talking robot teach us about trust? A lot, according to Northeastern psychology professor David DeSteno, and his colleagues, who are conducting innovative research to determine how humans decide to trust strangers — and if those decisions are accurate. The interdisciplinary research project, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is being … Read more

A 1000 years of economic bubbles, panics, and collapses shows that investors always think ‘this time is different’

Oh really? The advertisement warns of speculative financial bubbles. It mocks a group of gullible Frenchmen seduced into a silly, 18th-century investment scheme, noting that the modern shareholder, armed with superior information, can avoid the pitfalls of the past. “How different the position of the investor today!” the ad enthuses. It ran in The Saturday … Read more

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