Sunday, November 27, 2005  Why Do People Behave Nicely?  Social
psychologists -- and to some degree, most people in general --
seem to have a fascination with people who behave anything but
nicely. Take all the reality television shows for instance. Is
there one where people do nice things? Not really. It appears
that the television industry tries to find the biggest jackasses
to put on the boob-tube, and the public can't seem to get enough
of them. From the proliferation of reality TV shows, it doesn't
appear that there is any end to the jackasses. But why do we
have such a fascination with people gone wrong?  Discover
magazine has an article that throws a different spin on social
psychology. According to psychologist Joachim Krueger, there may
be just as much to learn about human behaviour from studying
people that do good things. Why do some people stop to help? Why
do some people thing of others before themselves? If you listen
to what social psychologists have had to say about people, based
on their stud