News by Subject Social & Behavior

The 52nd German Historians' Convention (Deutscher Historikertag) is to reevaluate the peace agreement 370 years ago - "It was only with the Peace of Westphalia that the politics of colonization became possible" - "Its global historical dimensions have long been overlooked" - Two years after Steinmeier's speech, the Historians' Convention will also conduct an interim review of the debate "Peace of Westphalia as a model for the Middle East?"

Bereaved children whose late mothers were very religious are likely to be less religious after their mother dies than youths who did not suffer a maternal loss. Conversely, children whose late mothers placed no importance on religion are more likely to become religious -- especially when it comes to praying often.

Religious people who lack friends and purpose in life turn to God to fill those voids, according to new University of Michigan research.

New research suggests people who are religious gain happiness from believing there is a deeper meaning to everyday events.

A team of researchers led by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and Australian National University analyzed how to avoid misinterpreting correlations in cross-cultural studies, published in Royal Society Open Science. The researchers identify three sources of non-independence in cultural variables -- meaning, the variables are correlated but are not caused by each other -- and present methods to control for these.

It's not uncommon to hear someone say that 'everything happens for a reason' or that something that happened was 'meant to be.' Now, researchers reporting in Current Biology on Aug. 20 have found that this kind of teleological thinking is linked to two seemingly unrelated beliefs: creationism, the belief that life on Earth was created by a supernatural agent, and conspiracism, the tendency to explain events in terms of secret conspiracies or conspiracy theories.

A powerful psychedelic compound found in ayahuasca can model near-death experiences in the brain, a study has found.