Sublime

Of the many emerging descriptions of our social brain, for me the simplest and most elegant is the highly regarded Social Baseline Theory of Lane Beckes and James A. Coan, two researchers at the University of Virginia.

The safest bet is to single out an individual from the group and direct a clear help request at them: “You, in the green shirt, call an ambulance.” This way, the person can’t shy away from the responsibility and won’t need to look for guidance from the others. As a result, they will almost certainly help.

Philosophers have long disagreed about whether it’s acceptable to harm one person in order to help or save several people. Utilitarianism is the philosophical school that says you should always aim to bring about the greatest total good, even if a few people get hurt along the way, so if there’s really no other way to save those five lives, go ahea

David Barlow. He was (and still is) one of the premiere anxiety researchers on the planet.

Regardless of how exactly one generates theories of other people's minds, it's clear that these theories profoundly affect moral decisions. Look, for example, at the ultimatum game, a staple of experimental economics. The rules of the game are simple, if a little bit unfair: an experimenter pairs two people together, and hands one of them ten dolla