2 . Chimpanzees (黑猩猩）enjoy watching movies together, scientists have discovered, in research that suggests social bonding through shared experience has deep evolutionary roots.

It is widely known that humans can bond over group activities such as watching a movie or playing board games. But it has been unclear whether the underlying psychology behind this effect is present in other species.

In the research, chimpanzees were placed in pairs and shown a short video. The researchers then measured how long it took them to approach their partners, how close they got and how long they remained in proximity (靠近）－two measures of social bonding.

Chimpanzees who had viewed the video with either another of their own species or a human approached their partner faster or spent longer in proximity to them, compared with those who had watched the video on their own, the scientists found.

The finding indicates that social bonding created by shared experience may have deeper evolutionary roots than previously thought.

“Animals can stand together and watch a waterfall, but they don't seem to seek out those kinds of experiences," said Wolf, an author on the study. “So for a long time we thought they weren't capable of processing that way or they weren't feeling any psychological consequences from doing so.

“It's exciting that at least some parts of the psychology that we need to connect through shared experiences may actually have a slightly older evolutionary history than previously suspected.”

The animals were tracked for only three minutes after they had watched the film, so it is not clear whether shared experiences strengthen social bonds in the long term. The research used animals in captivity (圈养），and scientists said it was not known whether the same effects would be observed in the wild.

3 . Empathy, the ability to understand and co-experience the feelings and thoughts of other people, is probably one of the most important skills a person can have.     1    

• Humans are social animals.

There are very few activities that humans take part in that don’t involve others.     2    It allows you to perceive others’ motives, treat them the way they want to be treated, understand how others perceive you, and so on.

• It lets you better understand non-verbal components of communication.

    3    People who are not empathetic have a hard time reading between the lines of conversations. They cannot understand that what the other person means to communicate is different from what they actually say.

•     4    

When you unconsciously perceive what the other party wants and needs and can understand exactly why they want it, reaching a “win-win” solution gets easier. You don’t have to blindly search for a way out.

• It broadens your horizons.

Seeing the world from other people’s perspectives lets you perceive it to a fuller extent. When you are able to look at life from other people’s point of view, you are able to live a more fulfilled life.

    5    Thus, achieving higher levels of empathy often means achieving greater fulfilment as human beings.

4 . Almost everyone gossips. And a new study finds that people spend about 52 minutes per day, on average, talking to someone about someone else who is not present.

But here’s the surprise: Despite the assumption that most gossip is trash talk, the study finds that the vast majority of gossip is non-judgmental chitchat.

“People love to talk about other people,” says Jeremy Cone, a psychologist at Williams College. “Think about your own conversations with a family member or friend: You talk about everyday things that keep you connected. You share that your daughter got her driver’s license or your uncle has a kidney stone. Much of it is just documenting facts.”

And, of course, the study also finds that some gossip is negative or mean-spirited. About 15% of the snippets of gossip that the researchers analyzed included some types of negative judgements.

But even negative gossip can serve a purpose, as more research has found.

“I think gossiping can be a smart thing to do,” says Elena Martinescu, a researcher at King’s College London who has studied gossip in the workplace. “It allows people to keep track of what’s going on and form social alliances with other people.”

Research has shown that gossip can help build group cohesion and cooperation. “When you gossip, you can keep track of who is contributing to the group and who’s being selfish,” Martinescu explains. “And by sharing this information, you can exclude those group members who are social loafers.”

“We also found that negative gossip makes people likely to repair the aspects of their behavior that they were criticized for,” Martinescu says.

So, say, for instance, you were criticized for always arriving at work late. Hearing that gossip about yourself may motivate you to want to be on time.

Of course, this isn’t a license to be a loose lips or to repeat baseless claims that can damage someone’s reputation unfairly. But confiding（吐露个人隐私）in your friends and colleagues and sharing impressions about another person—even when they’re negative—may be helpful.