Sep/Oct 2014

At a music-licensing firm, any situation can become nostalgic, romantic, or adventurous, given the right background sounds.

• By Anna Wiener

And it's called the Diderot effect.

• By Pacific Standard Staff

In every issue, we fix our gaze on an everyday photograph and chase down facts about details in the frame.

• By Pacific Standard Staff

Fossil Cycad National Monument was home to one of the world’s greatest collections of fossilized cycadeoids—until visitors carried them all away.

• By Kate Siber

William Deresiewicz's new book, Excellent Sheep, is in part, he says, a letter to his younger, more privileged self.

• By Stefan Beck

A new study shows that taxing carbon dioxide emissions could actually work to reduce greenhouse gases without any negative effects on employment and revenues.

• By Tom Jacobs

The latest entry in a series of interviews about subculture in America.

• By Ryan O'Hanlon

What California’s senior state archaeologist discovered in the ruins of a hippie commune.

• By Jon Mooallem

The fierce battle over genetic purity, writ small. Very small.

• By Brendan Borrell

The ability to delay gratification has been held up as the one character trait to rule them all—the key to academic success, financial security, and social well-being. But willpower isn't the answer. The new, emotional science of self-regulation.

• By David DeSteno

You may like to talk about how much happier you'd be if the government didn't interfere with your life, but that's not what the research shows.

• By Tom Jacobs

In a slow market, anxious sellers may hire a home stager to draw attention to their property, ultimately adding to the surging cost of real estate.

• By Kyle DeNuccio

This list includes studies cited in our pages that received funding from a source other than the researchers’ home institutions. Only principal or corresponding authors are listed.

• By Pacific Standard Staff

In a culture that increasingly valorizes start-ups and social entrepreneurship, and an economy that keeps ordinary people always on the lookout for the next gig, it makes sense that multi-level marketing firms have found a warm reception. But how different are they from their predecessors—and how are they the same?

• By Helaine Olen

A new study looks at the effects of access to a home computer on the test scores of middle school students.

• By Tom Jacobs

Bipartisan urban loathing.

• By Stephen Smith

Placebo buttons in elevators and at crosswalks that don't actually do anything are just the beginning. One computer scientist has collected hundreds of examples of technology designed to trick people, for better and for worse.

• By Kate Greene

For millions of Christians, biblical counselors have replaced psychologists. Some think it's time to reverse course.

• By Kathryn Joyce

Some people suspect the troubles of middle school are a matter of age. Middle schoolers, they think, are simply too moody, pimply, and cliquish to be easily educable. But these five studies might convince you otherwise.

• By Dana Goldstein

The science of self-control, the rise of biblical counseling, why middle school doesn't have to suck, and more in our September/October 2014 print issue.

• By Maria Streshinsky