greet the new year, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton provides the best research-based tips for overcoming our differences. Tis the season for countdowns—of the past year’s best movies, albums, news stories, and more. In that spirit, I’ve compiled a list of my own: the top ten strategies for reducing prejudice and improving intergroup relations. Here they are. 10. Travel (somewhere that challenges your worldview) The word “prejudice” can literally be broken down into “pre-” and “judgment.” Aptly, much of prejudice stems from our pre-judging other people’s habits, customs, clothes, ways of speaking, and values. We often do this with... posted on Sep 10 2011 (17,581 reads)

not what you know but who you know,” the saying goes, suggesting that social connections breed success. But it seems there’s at least one way that the rich are less socially connected: New research finds that upper class people have more trouble reading others’ emotions.   In a series of studies, researchers examined how well participants could judge the emotions that other people were feeling, a skill known as “empathic accuracy.” In each study, the researchers (including the GGSC’s Dacher Keltner) compared the empathic accuracy of people of higher and lower socioeconomic status (SES). In one study, they showed 200 adul... posted on Jul 24 2011 (11,738 reads)

consumption, or what lunching ladies have to do with social web karma. Stuff. We all accumulate it and eventually form all kinds of emotional attachments to it. (Arguably, because the marketing machine of the 20th century has conditioned us to do so.) But digital platforms and cloud-based tools are making it increasingly easy to have all the things we want without actually owning them. Because, as Wired founder and notable futurist Kevin Kelly once put it, “access is better than ownership.” Here are seven services that help shrink your carbon footprint, lighten your economic load and generally liberate you from the shackles of stuff through the power of sharing. ... posted on Aug 11 2011 (91,893 reads)

event - a foul-shooting contest for top academic students at Compton High School in Los Angeles - was created with a simple premise: Organizers wanted to show the kids at Compton how to create community spirit with college scholarship money as the incentive.   Allen Geui won in front of a packed house. Following a tear-jerking gesture from the winner - it appears the true lessons learned were by the adults.   The kids in Compton are more than alright. Three months after winning the $40,000 top prize, Allan Guei donated all of his winnings to the seven other finalists. Guei, a... posted on Jul 8 2011 (14,370 reads)

to fix the economy? Next time you buy coffee, purchase a cup for the person behind you. Or as you grind your way through the morning commute, pick up the tollbooth charge for the driver behind you, draped over his steering wheel and ranting at the long delay. You've heard that famous Gandhian quote about being the change, well these are good measures to start with, packing more punch than you might imagine. This approach to life starts with the following premise: What exactly did I (or you) do to deserve to be alive? If you can process that question and come out thinking it was a gift that you can't ever pay back, then beginning a life of greater giving is the only logical and remote... posted on Jul 9 2011 (31,913 reads)

the old days, no one ever stole. Those who were well off always shared what they had. If there was any thing someone wanted, that person had only to ask the owner and that thing would be given. And no one minded if someone borrowed something and then brought it back to its owner later. But when the sacred elk dogs, the horses, came, they brought with them new problems. It was not so easy to give away a horse, unless it was a special occasion. As a result, some people began to borrow horses that belonged to others without permission. They would bring them back, but sometimes many moons passed before that horse was returned. So the matter was brought to the Elk Society and they put fort... posted on Aug 16 2011 (36,410 reads)

comes a curious look at where they sleep. That’s exactly what Kenyan-born, English-raised, Venice-based documentary photographer James Mollison explores in Where Children Sleep — a remarkable series capturing the diversity of and, often, disparity between children’s lives around the world through portraits of their bedrooms. The project began on a brief to engage with children’s rights and morphed into a thoughtful meditation on poverty and privilege, its 56 images spanning from the stone quarries of Nepal to the farming provinces of China to the silver spoons of Fifth Avenue. From the start, I didn’t want it just to be about ‘needy child... posted on Sep 9 2011 (44,934 reads)

da Vinci, the Internet might be giving us a glimpse into the future of our species. Even in its infancy, the Internet is helping each of us to synthesize the two hemispheres of our brain. Clicking through the explosion of textual information activates the left hemisphere, while linking from page to page and video to video stimulates the right hemisphere. I believe that the Internet is literally changing the way we think, moving us through a constantly evolving landscape of words and images at the touch of a keystroke, which synthesizes the two hemispheres of our brain. If this rewiring is happening on an individual level to each person who uses the web, imagine the cumulative glo... posted on Oct 3 2011 (21,294 reads)

already had you nominate an everyday hero and vote on our favorite nominees. Today it's time to crown Tonic's first-ever Hero of the Month. Without further ado, March's hero is ... Katelyn Eystad, a 14-year-old in Pitman, NJ, whose kindness far exceeds her years. In 2009, Katelyn founded the Angels of God Clothing Closet to provide clothing, diapers, deodorant and more to people in need in her community. Already she has served 1,500 families. As the admirer who nominated her explains, "What a blessing this child has been to many. Katelyn is always volunteering and giving back to others." We loved hearing her story and we love that the nomina... posted on Nov 25 2011 (9,046 reads)

parents, sometimes the greatest lessons come unexpectedly, and from the smallest moments. 7-year-old Owen Shure’s heart-warming letter to a football player is a perfect example. The Twittersphere buzzed with reactions to the San Francisco 49ers’ Kyle Williams fumbling the ball in a tight moment in the playoffs. Some responses were downright vitriolic. But hopefully Kyle also saw this touching story from Ben Mankiewicz on the Huffington Post Blog: He was crying, saying of Kyle Williams, with the distinct sobs of a seven-year-old between each word, "But... why... did he... have to... fumble?" [...]   Trying to get his son to... posted on Jan 31 2012 (22,501 reads)

genealogy of ideas, why everything is a remix, or what T.S. Eliot can teach us about creativity. Austin Kleon is positively one of the most interesting people on the Internet. His Newspaper Blackout project is essentially a postmodern florilegium, using a black Sharpie to make art and poetry by redacting newspaper articles. In this excellent talk from The Economist‘s Human Potential Summit, titled Steal Like an Artist, Kleon makes an articulate and compelling case for combinatorial creativity and the role of remix in the idea economy. Kleon, who has clearly seen Kirby Ferguson’s excellent Everything is... posted on Mar 1 2012 (9,062 reads)

Japanese warrior looked perplexed. He had just offered tea to his Chinese adversary and asked whether his guest fully appreciated its quality, only to be told, “Nature does not make distinctions on tea. We do. I am not interested in the finer distinctions of the tea you have offered me because I have already decided to enjoy it.” The Japanese warrior slowly asked, “By the same logic, I take it then that you don’t consider any martial art as superior or inferior?” The Chinese warrior nodded and said, “Yes. It is the skill of the practitioner that brings out the essence of the art, and some are more skilled than others.” The Japanese warrior ret... posted on Mar 3 2012 (19,757 reads)

in today’s school system are not being prepared well for tomorrow’s world. As someone who went from the corporate world and then the government world to the ever-changing online world, I know how the world of yesterday is rapidly becoming irrelevant. I was trained in the newspaper industry, where we all believed we would be relevant forever — and I now believe will go the way of the horse and buggy. Unfortunately, I was educated in a school system that believed the world in which it existed would remain essentially the same, with minor changes in fashion. We were trained with a skill set that was based on what jobs were most in demand in the 1980s, not what ... posted on Mar 10 2012 (188,172 reads)

remix culture and collaborative creativity are an evolutionary advantage. Much has been said about what makes us human and what it means to be human. Language, which we’ve previously seen co-evolved with music to separate us from our primal ancestors, is not only one of the defining differentiators of our species, but also a key to our evolutionary success, responsible for the hallmarks of humanity, from art to technology to morality. So argues evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel in Wired for Culture: Origins of the Human Social Mind — a fascinating new addition to these 5 essential books on language, tracing 80... posted on Mar 11 2012 (34,439 reads)

is Ankur I was introduced to him about seven minutes before the start of a meditation gathering in a modest Mumbai home. "This is Ankur," our host Sachi had said, with the catching enthusiasm she’s known and loved for, "He's an amazing photographer and has recently gone totally ‘gift economy’." For the uninitiated, in this context the term gift economy means a system in which people do not charge for their services, but rather offer them up in the unconditional spirit of a gift, inviting recipients to “pay-forward” what they wish from their heart. It represents a broader shift, a movement if you will, from; transaction to trus... posted on Mar 13 2012 (40,078 reads)

start a new life.  How did he start searching for his parents? Today, Brierley owns an industrial supplies store in Tasmania. But he never stopped thinking about his long-lost parents. In recent years, he started to remember the Khandwa train station where his journey began. And that's where he started looking. What did he do then? Brierley used Google Earth and some fragmented childhood memories to hunt in towns around the train station. "I kept in my head the images of the town I grew up in, the streets I used to wander and the faces of my family," he tells Tasmania's The Mercury. Brierley spent hours on Google Earth zooming around ... posted on Mar 17 2012 (17,791 reads)

you your own worst critic? It’s common to beat ourselves up for faults big and small. But according to psychologist Kristin Neff, that self-criticism comes at a price: It makes us anxious, dissatisfied with our life, and even depressed. Kristin Neff For the last decade, Neff has been a pioneer in the study of “self-compassion,” the revolutionary idea that you can actually be kind to yourself, accept your own faults—and enjoy deep emotional benefits as a result. Last year, she distilled the results of her research in the popular book Self-Compassion.  Neff, an associate professor in human development and culture at the University of Tex... posted on Apr 7 2012 (75,175 reads)

almost spat it out by reflex. My friend had handed me a plastic bottle of milk with a bright pink label, and I'd taken a sip from it assuming that it was strawberry flavored, but it turned out to be regular milk -- cold and fresh -- which I actually like. So why such a strong and immediate reaction? In the words of the poet Anais Nin, "We don't see things as they are; we see them as we are." Mine was a trivial example, but it showed me that buying into inaccurate labels can create significant dissonance between expectations and reality. If something relatively automatic like the sense of taste can be duped by subconscious assumptions, it made me wonder just how muc... posted on May 9 2012 (24,030 reads)

M. was only 13 years old when his troubles with alcohol began. He stole bottles of hard liquor from his neighbor’s garage, enjoying how alcohol made him feel. Soon, he was drinking every day and using drugs, too. Shortly after turning 21, he crashed a car during an alcohol-induced blackout. A judge ordered him to attend Alcohol Anonymous (AA) meetings, where recovering alcoholics encourage each other to become (and stay) sober by sharing personal stories and following AA’s famous 12-step model. When Victor attended his first AA meeting, he was terrified. "I didn't say anything," he says. "I just stared at the floor the whole time and left as soon ... posted on May 16 2012 (11,496 reads)

recent years, we’ve seen an explosion of scientific research revealing precisely how positive feelings like happiness are good for us. We know that they motivate us to pursue important goals and overcome obstacles, protect us from some effects of stress, connect us closely with other people, and even stave off physical and mental ailments. This has made happiness pretty trendy. The science of happiness made the covers of Time, Oprah, and even The Economist, and it has spawned a small industry of motivational speakers, psychotherapists, and research enterprises. This website,Greater Good, features roughly 400 articles about happiness, and its parenting... posted on May 24 2012 (22,125 reads)