Why is a psychologist claiming "patent rights" for a basic psychological technique that he did not invent and does not own the patent for?

Author Bruce Feiler lists the three major family shifts of the past generation and explains how exploring these shifts led him to write his latest book.

Researchers have found that singles who spend their free time helping friends and neighbors are more likely to be in a relationship a year later. And who says nice guys finish last?

Big Think+ presents a 6-part workshop with accomplished economist Lawrence Summers, who explains the theory and practice of rational thinking in order to draw conclusions and make smart decisions.

Kip Tindell, featured today on the Big Think homepage, is CEO of the Container Store. He's also an evangelist for integrity-based sales and brand-building through sales rather than marketing.

Breakfast wasn't always a mainstream mealtime. In the Middle Ages, it was thought as unhealthy to eat another meal before the previous one was fully digested. So what brought about breakfast? Coffee and stable working hours.

How does someone's facial features influence how we view their decisions? The truth is if we think someone has a trustworthy face, we're less likely to contradict their decisions.

How an experiment high above Antarctica — Spider — sheds new light on the cosmic microwave background. Observations of the cosmic microwave background continue to capture public attention, highlighted these last few weeks in […]

Inspired by the real-life story behind the recent film Unbroken, the John Templeton Foundation has released a video teaching the importance of forgiveness.

"It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams."  

America's most meritocratic institutions—schools, universities, and the workplace—are becoming places where inheritance thrives rather than individuals with talent.

This would have totally changed London

The ubiquitous salt truck of winter, which helps spread a collective fifteen million tons of salt each season, is becoming an hefty bill to pay. 

How would your brain respond to seeing an image of grilled chicken? How about a plate of french fries? It turns out lean and overweight women's brains respond very differently to healthy and unhealthy foods.

For pregnant women, continuous anxiety and mental strain could cause babies to be underweight and nutrition-deprived at birth, according to a recent study. So, it's important not to stress about your stress levels.

What do our brains look like when we read aloud? What about when we read to ourselves? To your brain, it's the same thing.

Stress causes us to feel threatened, and even if the "threat" is something as small as a test, our minds shift into self-preservation mode, which may cause us to make immoral decisions.

In a world where the future of seemingly everything is online, museums — those repositories of the past — seem to resist the internet’s full digital embrace. It’s a question that’s increasingly crossed my mind thanks to a series of unrelated stories that share two common questions — how do people use museums now and how will they in the future? For every digital breakthrough enticing us to step on the virtual gas comes a cautionary tale reminding us to pump those virtual brakes. Ultimately, the online revolution is coming to museums, but is the future of museums really online?

A day after forecasters unanimously predicted a snowstorm of epic proportions for New York City, and the mayor ordered eight million people to stay off the roads, the predictions failed to materialize. The city received inches of snow rather than the feet predicted. A good thing, to be sure, but how did such dire predictions miss the mark?  

Lawrence H. Summers leads a six-part workshop on employing rational, data-driven thinking to make complex decisions.