Morality is Innate, Kinda

At least while we're young, we have a preference for kindness and goodness.  In Paul Bloom's study he had infants watch several puppet shows.  One performance showed a puppet helping a puppet in need while another show had a puppet being a nuisance to the puppet in need.  After the shows, the infants are presented with a choice: grab and play with the helpful puppet or the unhelpful puppet.  Does this mean that infants are innately good or just that they prefer toys that are helpful rather than annoying?  Maybe annoyance avoidance is innate ;).

You can check out this short video showing the actual experiment.  The experiment is genius even if the conclusions are questionable.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827821.900-morality-infant-origins-of-human-kindness.html 
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/magazine/09babies-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all 

Group Work and Intelligence

Who likes group work?  Teachers usually force it upon us.  Ever wondered what factors affect group performance?  Here is one answer: not intelligence according to research published in the prestigious journal Science. The researchers discovered that the social sensitivity of individuals in the group was more important than the intelligence of its members.  In short, empathy is probably a vital component of effective group optimization.  So try and be in groups with people who display empathy, better yet tell your teachers about the study so everybody can (try to) enjoy group work.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=groups-with-good-social-skills-outp-10-09-30