Does it Pay to be Nice?

Stare up at the night sky, and if you’re lucky, you might see a shooting star. Some people might make a wish, but CrowdScience listener Scott in California in the USA, thinks differently. He’s wondering how dangerous they might be.Shooting stars are actually meteors, ending their ...  Show more

We’re delving into the CrowdScience archive to give you another chance to hear an award-winning show from 2025. CrowdScience listener Dorit has a problem. She wants the tiles in her new bathroom to be arranged randomly but, no matter what she does, it still looks like they form s ...  Show more

No matter who you are, inevitably there is someone telling you to “be nicer” or “stop being so nice”. Girlbosses preach that nice girls don't get the corner office, and yet Instagram slogans plead to "be nice." But what is niceness? Is it a virtue? A defense mechanism? A personal ...  Show more

No matter who you are, inevitably there is someone telling you to “be nicer” or “stop being so nice”. Girlbosses preach that nice girls don't get the corner office, and yet Instagram slogans plead to "be nice." But what is niceness? Is it a virtue? A defense mechanism? A personal ...  Show more

What is the stronger motivator – reward or punishment? In other words, does hurt more to lose something than it feels good to gain something? We start this episode t with a look at some interesting research into this. ( https://source.wustl.edu/2015/05/carrot-or-stick-punishments- ...  Show more

Most of us want to be good people–but what even makes a person “good?” And is our fixation on whether or not we ARE good holding us back from becoming even better? Dolly Chugh is an author and social psychologist who studies the psychology of good people. In this episode, she exp ...  Show more