Bruce Bower

Bruce Bower

Behavioral Sciences Writer

Bruce Bower has written about the behavioral sciences since 1984. He often writes about psychology, anthropology, archaeology and mental health issues. Bruce has a master's degree in psychology from Pepperdine University and a master's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. Following an internship at Science News in 1981, he worked as a reporter at Psychiatric News, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association, until joining Science News as a staff writer. In 1996, the American Psychological Association appointed Bruce a Science Writer Fellow, with a grant to visit psychological scientists of his own choosing. Early stints as an aide in a day school for children and teenagers with severe psychological problems and as a counselor in a drug diversion center provided Bruce with a surprisingly good background for a career in science journalism.

All Stories by Bruce Bower

  1. Psychology

    Narcissists need no reality check

    Masters of vanity know they’re arrogant and disliked, but see own bigheadedness as justified.

  2. Humans

    Crime’s digital past

    Computer science makes history, gleaning new findings from centuries' worth of transcripts from a Victorian-era courthouse.

  3. Animals

    Baboon bosses get stressed for success

    In the wild, the most powerful males reign tensely.

  4. Animals

    Chimp has an ear for talk

    Human-raised Panzee challenges the notion that only people can discern acoustically altered words.

  5. Psychology

    Sleeping babies learn in an eyeblink

    To learn about spoken words and other sounds, 1-month-old babies sleep on it.

  6. Humans

    Bone may display oldest art in Americas

    A mammoth engraved on a fossil may date from at least 13,000 year ago.

  7. Psychology

    Math disability tied to bad number sense

    Children who don’t grasp arithmetic at all, unlike below-average students, have little feel for estimating quantities.

  8. Psychology

    Some fights vanish in plain sight

    People engrossed in a task frequently overlook the seemingly obvious, such as a loud brawl.

  9. Humans

    Site hints at Asian roots for human genus

    An early Homo species inhabited the Caucasus region 1.85 million years ago, casting doubt on its proposed African origin.

  10. Humans

    Ancestral gals roamed, guys stayed home

    Females in two ancient hominid species may have left their home groups to find mates.

  11. Psychology

    Kids own up to ownership

    Children value personal ownership more than adults do and may need to learn when to disregard possessive urges.

  12. Psychology

    Geometric minds skip school

    Villagers' understanding of lines and triangles raises questions about how people learn the properties of objects in space.