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July 24, 2012 Scientists have long studied why some requests seem to be met with a yes while others get a no. Now, there's a new development: A study finds that asking for unusual favors can be very effective in getting people to comply.

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July 12, 2012 It isn't just that fewer women choose to go into fields involving science, engineering, technology and math. Even when they do and are successful, women are more likely than men to quit. Psychological research suggests the gender disparity may be, at least in part, the result of of a vicious psychological cycle.

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June 21, 2012 U.S. traffic officials who hope to get drivers to slow down may have found something that works: a GPS device that gives drivers a financial incentive not to speed. Some 12,000 Americans die every year in traffic crashes caused by speeding, according to government statistics.

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May 29, 2012 Mothers and fathers can make a difference in whether their kids become spenders or savers, studies have found. Young people whose families had included them in conversations about money and budgets were much more likely to make more responsible financial decisions in the future.

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May 9, 2012 Two-thirds of Republicans say the president can do something about high gas prices; about two-thirds of Democrats say he can't. But six years ago, with a Republican president in the White House, those numbers were reversed. Researchers want to understand this flipped perception.

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May 3, 2012 For decades, teachers, managers and parents have assumed that the performance of students and employees fits what's known as the bell curve — in most activities, we expect a few people to be very good, a few people to be very bad and most people to be average. But new research argues that a lot of people are actually outliers.

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April 26, 2012 Hockey teams wearing darker-colored jerseys are more likely to be penalized for aggressive fouls than teams wearing white jerseys, new research finds. And teams wearing black jerseys get penalized the most. It's not clear whether the jersey color increases player aggression or draws more visual attention by referees.

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April 19, 2012 It would take most people about 30 full working days to read the privacy policies of all the websites they visit in a year, according to a study. Most of us agree to the policies without actually reading them — or knowing how much personal information is being captured.

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April 6, 2012 The agency has long warned Americans about the dangers of buying medicines online from unverified foreign pharmacies. But an economic analysis suggests that while there's good reason for the safety warnings, not all foreign pharmacies should be lumped together.

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April 6, 2012 The program, which is run by engineers, currently feeds 1.3 million children, making it one of the largest school lunch programs in the world. The program is so cost-effective it's become a Harvard Business School case study.

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April 3, 2012 Blistering political ads like the swift boat attacks on John Kerry in 2004 may not be as decisive as politicians think. Political scientists say if voters already know a candidate, negative ads don't have much of an impact.

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March 20, 2012 Data suggest that the racial attitudes of ordinary Americans have shaped both how they feel about Obama's health care overhaul and how intense those feelings are.

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