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. Forget About It: How the brain suppresses unwanted memories

    Two newly discovered neural processes give people the ability to intentionally forget upsetting memories.

  2. Hidden Smarts: Abstract thought trumps IQ scores in autism

    Autistic children and adults do better on a nonverbal test of abstract reasoning than they do on standard IQ tests, suggesting that their intelligence has been underestimated.

  3. Oldest siblings show slight IQ advantage

    The oldest boys in families, including those who became oldest after the death of an earlier-born brother, have a slight IQ edge over their younger siblings.

  4. Blind people excel at serial recall

    Blind people recall strings of words better than sighted people do, perhaps because of their greater reliance on memory in dealing with the tasks of daily life.

  5. Trouble in Paradise

    Schizophrenia strikes inhabitants of the Micronesian nation of Palau, especially the men, at an unusually high rate, raising questions about culture's role in a disease usually regarded as purely biological.

  6. Anthropology

    Ape Aid: Chimps share altruistic capacity with people

    Chimpanzees, as well as 18-month-old children, will assist strangers even when getting no personal reward, suggesting that human altruism has deep evolutionary roots.

  7. Archaeology

    Ancient beads found in northern Africa

    Perforated shells found in a Moroccan cave indicate that northern Africans made symbolic body ornaments 82,000 years ago, long before Europeans did.

  8. Borderline Aid: Psychotherapy soothes personality ailment

    Three forms of psychotherapy each provide substantial relief from symptoms of borderline personality disorder.

  9. Mental letdown for antipsychotic meds

    People with chronic schizophrenia get surprisingly modest improvements in memory and learning from new as well as old antipsychotic medications.

  10. Anthropology

    Chicken of the Sea: Poultry may have reached Americas via Polynesia

    Polynesians may have traveled back and forth to South America more than 600 years ago, introducing chickens to the Americas in the process.

  11. Past Impressions

    New research sheds light on the century-old concept of transference, a mental process in which people re-experience past relationships in new interactions.

  12. Take a Number: Kids show math insights without instruction

    Kindergartners can solve relatively complex addition and subtraction problems if allowed to use their intuitive grasp of approximate quantities rather than being required to calculate exact solutions.