Public transport infrastructure can be deeply political. A new cycle lane appears in a neighborhood, and suddenly the letters page of the local paper is full. A plan to pedestrianize a city center street sparks furious debate. ...
Social Sciences
Sep 24, 2025
0
26
Finnish people who lived abroad as children grow into an exceptionally skilled and globally oriented workforce as adults, a new doctoral dissertation from the University of Vaasa, Finland, reveals. Mireka Caselius's study ...
Social Sciences
Sep 23, 2025
0
3
Female treefrogs prefer a mate with an impressive call, but the crowded environments give unattractive males an edge, according to a new international study led by Assistant Professor Jessie Tanner of the University of Tennessee, ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 10, 2025
0
2
When orangutans were shown two photos side by side, one of a dominant flanged male (having large pads on the sides of their faces) and one of an unflanged male, they spent more time looking at the flanged male.
Plants & Animals
Sep 4, 2025
0
0
A-level results in 2025 show the increasing popularity of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) among students. For students taking three A-levels—the majority—the most popular combination of subjects was biology, ...
Education
Aug 19, 2025
0
8
In 1871, Charles Darwin introduced his theory of sexual selection by female choice in The Descent of Man. He suggested females of a species would exhibit a preference for beauty and ornamentation when choosing mates, leading ...
Evolution
Aug 18, 2025
0
0
In more gender-equal countries, girls tend to avoid natural and engineering sciences more than girls in countries with lower levels of gender equality, according to the doctoral dissertation of M.A. Marco Balducci at the ...
Social Sciences
Jun 17, 2025
0
13
Anyone wondering why "the same type of person" often works in certain occupations now has a sound scientific answer: A new study by the University of Mannheim shows that personality and career choice are closely linked—a ...
Social Sciences
May 27, 2025
0
1
Researchers from the University of Hamburg Business School and INSEAD reveal that political ideology strongly influences whether carbon footprint labels on food products shift consumers' choices toward more sustainable options.
Social Sciences
May 20, 2025
0
49
A new study introduces choice engineering—a powerful new way to guide decisions using math instead of guesswork. By applying carefully designed mathematical models, researchers found they could influence people's choices ...
Mathematics
May 19, 2025
0
10
Choice consists of the mental process of judging the merits of multiple options and selecting one of them. While a choice can be made between imagined options ("what would I do if ...?"), often a choice is made between real options, and followed by the corresponding action. For example, a route for a journey is chosen based on the preference of arriving at a given destination as soon as possible. The preferred (and therefore chosen) route is then derived from information about how long each of the possible routes take. This can be done by a route planner. If the preference is more complex, such as involving the scenery of the route, cognition and feeling are more intertwined, and the choice is less easy to delegate to a computer program or assistant.
More complex examples (often decisions that affect what a person thinks or their core beliefs) include choosing a lifestyle, religious affiliation, or political position.
Most people regard having choices as a good thing, though a severely limited or artificially restricted choice can lead to discomfort with choosing and possibly, an unsatisfactory outcome. In contrast, unlimited choice may lead to confusion, regret of the alternatives not taken, and indifference in an unstructured existence; and the illusion that choosing an object or a course leads necessarily to control of that object or course can cause psychological problems.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
