The Penn State scandal brings up questions about morality and behavior. One issue that has been largely ignored is that of evil and how it is not as rare as we would like to believe.

Your first sessions in therapy are likely to revolve around collecting details of your life. What your family tree, your childhood friends, or a major illness may have to do with your current situation may not be apparent at first, but there’s more to know about taking a client history.

Doing so may not always be easy, but empirical research suggests that being grateful can help foster an overall sense of well-being and happiness. Taking note of the many things we have to feel thankful about can play a highly constructive role in the development of our world view and our character.

Time has a special meaning for mental processes. Understanding the tempo of thought can help you think better.

The Footloose remake had the chance to make it something special, radical even — to develop a female character as something other than a mere motivation for male characters’ development — but instead took the easy way out.

Our modern culture’s attachment to excess is easy to see in the material realm: bigger homes, bigger cars, and bigger paychecks. The simplicity movement has done well pointing out the downsides of the “bigger is better” aesthetic. However, a predisposition to excess can also infest our minds. Sometimes the smartest thing to do is to think less.

Plenty of parents believe strongly in spanking. But research not only fails to support the most common rationalizations in favor of spanking, it suggests the opposite — that spanking is bad for kids.