The Conversation

Children are natural optimists – which comes with psychological pros and cons

Written by Janet J. Boseovski, Associate Professor of Psychology, University of North Carolina – Greensboro

Little kids have a tendency to look on the bright side.Brian A Jackson/Shutterstock.com

You might hesitate to make a character judgment about someone based on a first encounter. Most adults would probably want to see how a stranger acts in several different circumstances, to decide whether someone new is nice, mean or trustworthy.

Young children are...

Pope Francis' apology for abuse in Chile would once have been unthinkable

Written by Mathew Schmalz, Associate Professor of Religion, College of the Holy Cross

What does it mean for a pope to apologize?AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

In a letter on April 11 to the bishops of Chile, Pope Francis asked forgiveness for his “serious errors of assessment and perception.” His apologies were directed to the victims of Fr. Fernando Karadima, whose abuse of at least three men when they were children was...

Will US-Japan friendship survive uncertainty in Asia?

Written by Emily Metzgar, Associate Professor of Journalism, Indiana University

President Donald Trump, left, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will meet with President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Largo on April 17 and 18.

The relationship between these two leaders’ countries may help shape the U.S. approach to upcoming talks with North Korea. Those talks will...

Choosing the wrong college can be bad for your mental health

Written by Noli Brazil, Assistant Professor of Community & Regional Development, University of California, Davis

How peers perform in college can affect student mental health. mimagephotography/www.shutterstock.com

Going off to college might be a source of anxiety for some students, but once a student is on campus it shouldn’t be a total drag.

But that tends to happen more frequently when a student ends up at a college where the student body is weaker...

Before Trump was anti-Cuba, he wanted to open a hotel in Havana

Written by William M. LeoGrande, Professor of Government, American University School of Public Affairs

Presidents Raul Castro and Donald Trump both canceled trips to April’s Summit of the Americas in Peru, avoiding a potential confrontation – though U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez lobbed insults at each other in their stead.

Relations between the United States and Cuba have grown tense...

The real IRS scandal has more to do with budget cuts than bias

Written by Philip Hackney, James E. & Betty M. Phillips Professor of Law, Louisiana State University

Members of the tea party movement seen rallying outside the Capitol in 2013. AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Conservatives have been seething since 2013 over what they say was an unfair effort by the IRS to scrutinize right-leaning organizations more closely than other groups seeking nonprofit status.

As a report from the Treasury Department’s ins...

Bearing witness to Cambodia's horror, 20 years after Pol Pot's death

Written by George Chigas, Senior Lecturer in Cambodian Studies, University of Massachusetts Lowell

How do survivors find healing? Chum Mey, a survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime, walks past a portrait of Nuon Chea, a former Khmer Rouge leader.AP Photo/Heng Sinith

Twenty years ago, on April 15, 1998, Pol Pot, the leader of Cambodia’s genocidal government during the late 1970s, died in his sleep at the age of 73. Born Saloth Sar, Pol Pot was...

The Trump administration's new migratory bird policy undermines a century of conservation

Written by Amanda Rodewald, Professor and Director of Conservation Science, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University

Tundra swans, which nest in the Arctic and migrate south in fall, alight at Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina.Allie Stewart/USFWS, CC BY

The Trump administration has announced a position on protecting migratory birds that is a drastic pullback from policies in force for the past 100 years.

In 1916, amid the chaos of World War...

US airstrikes in Syria nothing more than theater

Written by James L. Gelvin, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, University of California, Los Angeles

Despite outcries from horrified aficionados of Japanese theater, the term “Kabuki” seems to have found a permanent place in the American political lexicon. The term refers to an act that is more a contrived and ritualized posturing than a useful means to an end.

As someone who has written and taught about the Middle East for more than...

Syrian Kabuki

Written by James L. Gelvin, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, University of California, Los Angeles

As someone who has written and taught about the Middle East for more than...