Word: humanity
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Typically, scientists use animals to study a new theory before they try it out in humans. But sometimes they go in the opposite direction, using animals to see whether certain theories apply only to humans. A new paper in Science does exactly that, investigating whether a widely documented human phenomenon - the fact that we tend to prefer people who behave the same way we do in social interactions - exists in other species...
...study reconfirms the notion that imitation is not uniquely human (past research has also shown that apes and monkeys easily recognize when they are being copied), and that our affinity for it may have roots in our evolution. What has never been precisely understood, though, is why we like to be parroted so much. One theory is that mimicry somehow promotes safety in groups of animals by binding them together - that mimicry is a kind of social glue. (Read what fat-bellied monkeys tell us about our own social stress...
That hypothesis certainly supports the human tendency toward reflexive imitation, a term coined in the 18th century by Adam Smith to describe the psychological act of putting yourself in someone else's shoes and experiencing their feelings - you wouldn't do that unless you were after some sort of social bond. Some years later, in 1999, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology published an influential paper showing how socially bonding the act of mimicking can be, even when people aren't aware they're being imitated. In the study, psychologists Tanya Chartrand, who is now at Duke, and John...
...seems like you're trying to get people to think of doctors in a less clinical, more human way, and to recognize that there are emotions on both sides contributing to the successes and failures. Absolutely. I think one of the great things about House is that often in solving the problem, it's something in his real life that triggers a thought about his patient. I think fundamentally what doctors and patients both have to remember is that the diagnosis process is a collaboration between two experts: the doctor, who is an expert on the body and disease...
...talk a lot about the death of the physical exam too. You attribute that, in part, to another very human response: doctors feeling awkward about touching another person in an intimate way. That's not something we hear about very often. I don't know that this has ever been studied in a systematic way, but it is, I think, very natural to feel uncomfortable touching people that you barely know. There are a lot of rules in our society about touching - who gets to touch, and where, and how. Even when you're in the crowd that's allowed...