It is what we say we value more than anything else. In surveys to determine the factors that contribute most to human happiness, respondents consistently rate connection to friends and family-love, intimacy, social affiliation-above wealth or fame, even above physical health. Read More

This past year, Chicagoans have heard the uplifting rhetoric of now-President Obama at Grant Park in November and the surrealistic explanations of now-impeached Governor Blagojevich for his alleged attempts to sell gubernatorial appointments. These contrasting episodes of idealism and corruption represent the broad scope of human nature, which, according to new findings in brain and behavioral science, includes not only the impulse to pursue narrowly defined self-interest, but also an impulse to serve social concerns greater than the self. Read More