When danger is in the eye of the beholder
UCLA anthropologists study how, why we read into potential peril
They went boating alone without life vests and gave no thought to shimmying up very tall coconut trees.
And although they were only figments of a writer’s imagination, the fictional adventurers helped provide new insight into how humans, especially men, gauge the threat of a potential adversary. Those reading the stories — dozens of residents of a small village on the Fijian island of Yasawa — judged the characters to be risk-seekers. (more…)