What is the secret of Manchester United's manager Alex Ferguson's success? No, it was not primarily the quality of his players nor the money he had to spend on attracting international stars. We know this because before he moved to Manchester more than a quarter of a century ago, he...

Margaret Thatcher was a deeply polarizing leader whose policies I lived under and disagreed with. But I look on aghast at the morbid celebrations of her death in the UK and at the ghoulish joy expressed by many who were not even alive while she was prime minister. This outburst...

At the height of her political power, elderly people with dementia remembered that Margaret Thatcher was prime minister more readily than that Queen Elizabeth was their queen. Her own declining years unfortunately were plagued by dementia and this remarkable woman will be given a state funeral of entirely...

North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-Un is behaving rationally.

The 30-year-old is new leader of a gang which has taken over - nay, created - an entire country, and like any boss he wants to keep his gang in power and build its wealth and status. He is no different...

Around one in every five high school age boys in the United States have received a medical diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has discovered.

ADHD is being grossly overdiagnosed in the USA and in some other countries for a...

The new patient was a famous artist and the hospital staff who knew about art were half in awe of him, half dismayed to see his flaccid left arm and his drooping left face. The stroke had ravaged the right side of his brain.

So when, in his occupational therapy...

For the second time in history, a black man is being publically inaugurated as US president.
Hopefully political supporters and opponents will come together to celebrate a democratic system working well, and that a slowly improving economy will raise peoples' mood.

But while disagreement with his policies fuel...

There are many different possible reasons why British celebrity Jimmy Savile was never caught over his half-century long sexual predator rampage. One was his psychopathic-like super-sense of being able to sniff-out the most psychologically vulnerable who would either not tell or not be believed.

Second was wealth - at...

Can you remember a time when you find that you have arrived somewhere - only to realise that you have no memory of the journey?

This common experience shows that our brains can run on 'automatic pilot', taking us through life's familiar routines without bothering to link up with...

On Tuesday the world may tip over the 'fiscal cliff' and plunge into a new global recession. If this happens, the psychology of the relationship between President Obama and Republican representatives will have played a part in this.

In the so-called 'Prisoner's Dilemma' game, two conspirators, John and Peter,...

22 young Chinese children are alive this morning because their government does not allow hundreds of millions of Chinese men ready access to ultra-efficient, semi-automatic assault weapons.

Early on Friday morning, a few hours before the awful news from Sandy Hook in Connecticut broke, a man...

Living for three months in New York has made me feel like I have an extra decade to live.

Just before I came to Manhattan, I gave a TEDx talk on 'the Perfect City" where I argued that just as cities make people walk faster -...

A free press is a crucial curb on the potentially corrupting effects of political power. Journalists' investigation of business, religious, and social leaders has also been a necessary constraint on the power that they wield.

Power has neurological effects on the brain which can include a distortion of thinking,...

Whatever you think of the current standoff between President Barack Obama and the Republican-led Congress over the budget, what you are witnessing is raw, messy democracy in action.

Democrats may rail against the obduracy of the Congress and Republicans howl at the intransigence of the President as they totter...

We were sitting round a crackling fire in a country cottage, a group of house guests and their hosts relaxing after a winter walk. Yet even as we relaxed into the chat of new acquaintances, over the course of the next hour the general conversation seemed gradually to die out,...

Why did David Petraeus risk a dazzling career and even a possible future presidential candidacy for sex with his biographer?

Petraeus's already considerable power expanded when he took over CIA. And power is drug with psycho-active properties, one of the strongest of which is as an increase in sexual...

A recent poll by Washington Post/ABC News showed that while Mitt Romney leads Barack Obama by 60% to 37% among white voters, Obama leads the challenger among 79% of non-white voters.

Of course there are many reasons other than race which contribute to this difference, but there can be...

Last night Mitt Romney was nervous and Barack Obama looked confident and relaxed. In the first presidential debate, Obama stuttered a little, particularly at the beginning, while last night it was Romney who was slightly faltering in language from time to time.

As Obama was speaking, Romney had to struggle...

Lance Armstrong wanted to win so badly that his team "ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen", the United States Anti-Doping Agency report on Lance Armstrong released this week says.

These findings have been psychologically devastating for many people, particularly those for...

Barack Obama's bowed head, averted eyes and blue tie lost him Wednesday night's debate. In contrast, Mitt Romney stood erect, challenged with his gaze and dominated in a primitive way with his red tie. All three of these things increase testosterone, increase dopamine and increase aggression, motivation and mental sharpness....