To understand human behavior, it is important to know under what conditions people deviate from selfish rationality. This study explores the interaction of natural survival instincts and internalized social norms using data on the sinking of the Titanic and the Lusitania. We show that time pressure appears to be crucial when explaining behavior under extreme conditions of life and death. Even t...

The good news: there has been an invention and it looks like it’s commercially valuable and is probably going to be patentable. The bad news: it’s your job to figure out who should be named as an inventor on the patent application. Test your knowledge or your instincts in what has been called “One of the muddiest concepts in the muddy metaphysics of the patent law.” Which of the following (if a...

The choice of foraging strategies implies an attempt at gaining energy by predators. Supposedly, the difference in employing the "sit and wait" or "active foraging" behavior lays in hunter skills, experience and the kind of prey consumed. With the hypothesis that "active foraging" demands no learning, in this study we compared the prey capture efficiency among Wattled Jacana juveniles and adult...

Many complex behaviors are genetically hardwired. Based on previous findings on genetic control of mating and other behaviors in invertebrate and mammalian systems, I suggest that genetic control of complex behaviors is modular: first, dedicated genes specify different behavioral patterns; secondly, separable genetic networks govern distinct behavioral components. I speculate that modular genet...

There is no right or wrong way to visit a museum. The most important rule you should keep in mind as you go through the front door is to follow your own instincts. Be prepared to find what excite you, to enjoy what delights your heart and mind, perhaps to have aesthetic experiences you will never forget.

In Robert Provine's review of Ha: The Science of When We Laugh and Why and The Humor Code: A Global Search for What Makes Things Funny, he leans on his own analysis of simple instincts such as laughing and yawning and his research for his own book, Laughter: A Scientific Investigation.

Habitat selection is an important behavioural process widely studied for its population-level effects. Models of habitat selection are, however, often fit without a mechanistic consideration. Here, we investigated whether patterns in habitat selection result from instinct or learning for a population of grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) in Alberta, Canada. We found that habitat selection and related...