There are certain personality traits that give away a psychopath. However, displaying just one or two of the traits listed below does not mean someone is a psychopath… it’s their overall personality that leads to a discovery of psychopathy. So here’s a list of traits to look out for:

Psychopaths are masters of manipulation, their true intentions hidden behind a veneer of charm and a pleasant, even caring personality. They’re so nice to everyone, your family, your friends… but it won’t last! Before long, their rather inflated opinion of themselves will give them away.

Psychopaths have a grandiose sense of self worth, of their own importance. They are never wrong, they’re ‘expert’ opinions are more valid than anyone else’s, they are amazing at everything they do they will turn on anyone who doesn’t accept this. They are extremely manipulative and think nothing of using every trick in the book to achieve their aims, including emotional blackmail or even threats — even threats of violence.

They often jump from one short-term sexual relationship to another… a series of short term romantic relationships are often their hunting ground, and none of them last very long. They lack empathy and even the mildest criticism can activate a very short and unpleasant temper. You might not notice at first, but once you get to know a psychopath, you begin to see that their whole life is a lie. For psychopath, lying is a way of life.

They will use lies, charm, anger, to get what they want. The problem is, you won’t even realise you’re being played, at least up to the moment you realise you’ve been manipulated. You will look back on the relationship and wonder how you could have been so stupid! But don’t look for remorse or guilt, because the psychopath doesn’t worry about ruining their victim’s lives — they are only interested in their own aims and if those aims hurt others, that’s their own fault!

There are a number of early behavioural problems evident during childhood that indicate a person could grow up to become a psychopath. Significant violence as a child is one sign and this can be directed at other children, animals, or even adults, including parents. But the real giveaway is a lack of empathy. Psychopaths don’t care about other people’s feelings. Psychopaths are simply not interested in what people might be thinking.

There are however, a couple of things you can do to disarm them or even fight back. It’s essential to show genuine empathy for the bully because only someone who is suffering inside would insult someone else. So… if someone insults you, you should remain relaxed, pause for a moment and then ask them “are you ok?” This is called the ‘empathetic reply’. If someone insults you, they are most likely insecure or just feeling bad, so maybe pause for a moment, look around a bit, and then ask them if they’re ‘doing all right.’

You should ignore insults… if someone does insult you to your face or in a group setting, don’t change your facial expression, try to stay relaxed, and keep talking about the thing you were talking about. Ignoring them will make them feel uncomfortable. If you show you’re not phased, or didn’t even hear it, that’s going to be awkward, they’re going to look bad, and you’re going to be in control.’

Excessive optimism is linked to lower cognitive ability. It’s well known that those with too much of an optimistic outlook on life can make poor decisions. Research has shown that people with an inflated opinion of their own abilities perform poorly in tests for verbal fluency, problem-solving, numerical reasoning and memory, while those with higher cognitive abilities tend to be more realistic — even pessimistic — about the future.

Data was examined from a UK survey of 36,000 households, which included the results of cognitive tests. Over a period of ten years, researchers examined the annual financial records of optimistic people and compared their expectations of financial wellbeing before comparing them with actual outcomes.

The results were inevitable… plans based on overly optimistic beliefs encouraged poor decisions which delivered worse outcomes than more realistic beliefs. The problem is that being too optimistic about outcomes causes people to delude themselves

Based on research from the University of Bath.

Science has made enormous strides forward every area of medicine over the last 40 years — except in the area of mental health. Although more than £18 billion has been spent every year on psychiatric research and even more on mental health services in the UK, too much of this money is being handed to big pharma. In fact nearly 25% of the adult population are prescribed psychiatric drugs year. Mental health is now being talked about more than ever before.

According to the NHS Independent Mental Health Taskforce, set up to construct a national strategy to improve mental health services, positive mental health outcomes are declining… and suicide rates have increased.

The vast majority of people prescribed psychiatric medication are not mentally ill, they are people suffering the consequences of being overwhelmed by life’s difficulties such as poverty, job loss, family breakdown, mental and physical abuse, uncertainty, anxiety, bipolar or personality or disorder… the list goes on. Quite often, all they get is a seven-minute GP consultation, a diagnosis, and antidepressants on which they become dependent.

But the real the problem is nothing to do with mental illness — it’s emotional. Most patients are having relationship problems, sexual problems, problems at work, low self-esteem, bereavement or loneliness. What’s really needed is counselling or hypnotherapy or just someone to talk to, someone who will understand their problems! The idea that problems are due to a chemical imbalance (for which there are no tests) is not only ridiculous, it’s insulting. Worse, drug based interventions are likely do more harm than good.

Recent research has shown that abnormalities in brain function are not the cause of mental illness and such diagnoses often have an adverse effect on recovery. According to a Harvard University study, published in 2020, people diagnosed with depression and told their problems were due to chemical imbalances are liable to become more pessimistic and more depressed about their recovery. And… once on antidepressants, it’s difficult to come off them.

Over-diagnosis and over treatment of emotional distress is driven by drug manufacturers. The pharmaceutical industry has managed to influence psychiatric research, training and practice through financial sponsorship, funding of influential mental health charities, patient groups and those in charge of psychiatry departments in hospitals. They have also commissioned, designed, paid for, and conducted nearly all the official clinical trials!

The two questionnaires widely used by the NHS to help doctors determine if a person has depression or anxiety [PHQ-9 and GAD-7 tests] were originally developed by Pfizer, makers of Effexor and Zoloft — the most prescribed antidepressant drugs in the UK.

In countries where antidepressant use has doubled over the past 20 years — the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, and Iceland — the number of people claiming disability payment for mental health problems has doubled. [Reference. Mad In America by Robert Whitaker.]

If the drugs actually worked, these numbers would be significantly lower. There is plenty of evidence that psychiatric drugs appear to worsen long-term outcomes. In 2017 a study into long-term antidepressant use measured the progress of 3,300 patients over nine years. The study found medicated patients experienced significantly more severe symptoms after nine years than those who stopped the treatment. People who received no treatment at all did even better!

These are not the first findings of this nature. The uselessness, of antidepressant drugs such as Prozac were well documented in Dr. Irving Kirsch’s book ‘The Emperors New Drugs’. Compared to placebos, talking therapies and nothing, antidepressant drugs came in last. Research published in the British Journal of General Practice in 1998 found that patients prescribed antidepressants stopped getting better after three months, while a group who didn’t receive the drugs continued to improve!

In 2007, the most comprehensive study of long-term psychiatric drug use was published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. The study followed a large group of patients all of whom had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. The patients were asked how they were doing after five, ten and 15 years of taking antipsychotic drugs.

After 4½ years, 39% of participants who had stopped taking the medication had fully recovered, compared with only 6% who continued taking the drugs. After ten years, the gap had widened even more. The longer patients stayed on the drugs, the worse the results. Anxiety, cognitive function and capacity to work were all impaired.

In 2019, researchers at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences found that long term use of antidepressants increased the risk of re-hospitalisation of patients diagnosed with both depression and bipolar disorder. There are plenty of other studies evidencing long-term use of psychiatric drugs explains an increased risk of relapse or worsening symptoms.

In 2011, one of the foremost neuroscientists in the US, Professor Nancy Andreasen, headed a team which explored long-term antidepressant drug use. MRI scans revealed that long-term use of certain anti-psychotic medication was associated with smaller brain tissue volume. This degeneration was not a symptom of the disease but a result of long-term psychiatric drug use.

Although the study specifically looked at people being treated for schizophrenia, the researchers noted that antipsychotics are increasingly being used for other conditions such as bipolar disorder and depression. This is only one example of evidence suggesting that the drug-heavy approach may partly explain why mental health recovery is so poor.

The long-term use of psychiatric drugs has been observed to increase a host of other problems such as weight gain, neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia, and sexual dysfunction. In the UK, our dependence on drugs is higher than ever — 4.4 million people are on antidepressants.

One reason we seem unable to ditch antidepressants is a misunderstanding about the withdrawal effects, which were thought to be mild and short-lived, lasting for just a week or two. The inconvenient truth is that most people experience severe withdrawal symptoms such as increased anxiety, insomnia and even thoughts of suicide that can last for months.

Since its introduction in 2006, the principal mental health therapy offered by the NHS — IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) — has been thought to be a success, with nearly ten million people treated. Almost half of people recover after IAPT treatment which generally involves up to six sessions of CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) which is largely about changing patient’s perspective, which then helps them better adapt to their circumstances. But IAPT was built on the promise that it was a quick and cost-effective way to get people back to work. Aside from the impressive headline figures, there is evidence that IAPT is actually failing, and failing badly.

In 2010, Dr Michael Scott, an academic and a clinical psychologist at the University of Manchester, noticed something odd when he was assessing IAPT patients. Acting as an expert witness for the courts, Dr Scott heard time and again that people’s IAPT treatment hadn’t worked, so he decided to conduct his own review. Looking at 65 cases of those who had passed through IAPT services, he found that whatever the condition being treated, only 16% of people could be said to be in recovery — an outcome at odds with the results reported by IAPT.

Unfortunately, IAPT only includes patients who complete the full course of treatment, when in fact half IAPT patients — those who fail to turn up or drop out — are not mentioned in the results, meaning the actual recovery rate is about 23%. [Ref. University of Chester Centre for Psychological Therapies.] In other words, only around 2 out of 10 patients recover and not the nearly 5 out of 10 reported, meaning it’s as effective as no treatment.

A large review of data by Australian researchers in 2012 showed 23% of patients spontaneously overcame their depression within three months, without any treatment. In 1996, a committee at a symposium funded by the drug company Eli Lilly decided that the more successful [false] numbers would be used in clinical guidelines internationally, despite the absence of corroborating research. The ‘results’ went unquestioned and were accepted by doctors. When they spotted severe or protracted withdrawal symptoms they assumed their patients were relapsing, so they gave them more drugs!

This may explain why, since guidelines on withdrawal were issued in 2004, the length of time the average person in the UK spends on an antidepressant has doubled. In 2018, a review conducted at the University of East London finally helped to expose the myth, proving that withdrawal affected more than half of antidepressant users — of which half reported it as severe. A significant proportion of them also experienced withdrawal for many months. The research, along with other studies, led to the UK’s guidelines being revised and a dramatic U-turn by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

There are few alternatives to drugs available. An obvious one would be hypnotherapy, but hypnotherapy requires time. Sessions can last more than an hour, but unlike a pill, the hypnotherapist can focus attention on an individual client’s needs. Of all the therapies, hypnosis is the most successful. Research shows that given a choice, the majority of patients consulting a GP would prefer someone to talk to.

In April 2020, when the Covid lockdown was causing everyone stress and anxiety, the Royal College of Psychiatrists warned of a coming ‘tsunami of mental illness’. Three months later, in July 2020, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported rates of depression had doubled. But what was being described ‘mental illness epidemic’ did not look like illness at all. The data showed the worst-affected people were women with small children, the ill, the bereaved, people who had lost their jobs, and young people aged between 18 and 24. But the cause of their emotional angst was not misfiring brain chemicals or a genetic predisposition to mental illness — it was the obvious non-medical social stresses to which these groups were exposed.

When YouGov got around to undertaking the largest survey into the national outlook, only 9% of people reported wanting life to return to ‘normal’ after the pandemic. Many of them were relieved to be temporarily away from jobs they disliked and the bustle of travelling to and from work. Some had found opportunities to spend more time with family, to deepen connections, to read, to reflect, to walk, to exercise, or to catch up with personal projects they had previously not time for.

So it might well be that the way to eliminate stress, anxiety, and dissatisfaction with life, is to concentrate on feelings and emotions… to explore the inner self and find that inner peace. Find that imaginary invisible cocoon, that invisible force field, and keep all life’s anxieties and emotional strife firmly on the outside. Hypnotherapy can show you how to do that — and it’s easier than you think. No pills, no potions, just pure relaxation and peace of mind.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is without doubt the disease of the new century — or at least it would be if it were not for the fact that humans have all too often been the authors of their own foreboding… unkindness to their fellows, wars, exploitation, sexual violence etc. etc. etc… But we still have to deal with it and help clients pick up the pieces.

When we talk about PTSD, we’re not talking about the stresses and strains of modern life, which include things like stress at work, stress at home, stress with the kids, the stress of trying to make the budget stretch out to the end of the month. These are things that most people experience and there are some easy and straightforward methods we can use to relieve stress — hypnotherapists are well versed in the relaxation techniques that result in rapid and reliable relief.

But real PTSD is something rather different and more difficult to live with. PTSD affects people who have been involved in, or witnessed, events that no one should have to bear. We’re talking fatal road accidents, acts of extreme violence, or the grim business of preserving you own life in the deserts of Iraq or the mountains of Afghanistan. I’m sure you get the idea. Most cases of PTSD are the result of sudden shock or events that unfold relatively quickly, but not all cases. PTSD can also result from days, or months of exposure to chronically stressful situations.

PTSD can also lead to psychological resilience rather than psychological breakdown, although this is not necessarily the case with repeated trauma. There is also a danger of what Harvard University psychologist Richard J. McNally calls Criterion Creep, which is when the boundaries of diagnosis are expanded beyond recognition, or what is reasonable, to include things that are not really all that traumatic.

Examples of things that fall into that category would be: your dog dies of old age; a friends father dies of a heart attack; a failed short-term relationship; seeing a dead enemy solder (not a friend); getting slightly scalded by a cup of tea because you are too fucking stupid to put it in the drinks holder instead of on top of the dashboard when you drive away from McDonalds.

It is true that time is a great healer. The pain of trauma usually wears off over time. But the memory of the event is still there and will always be there — ask any war veteran. Unfortunately, not even the world’s most accomplished hypnotherapist, psychologist or mind-magician can erase the memory of a peak experience. What hypnosis can achieve is create Emotional Distance.

In hypnotherapy, the therapists often work with the emotions to help the client to achieve a change in the way they perceive. The brain often hides behind the heart. Using a combination of relaxation, visual imagery (creative imagination) it is possible to ‘send away’ the painful part of the trauma, leaving only an inert memory.

PTSD — a roadmap:

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) develops in some people who have experienced shocking or frightening or life-threatening events. People who suffer from PTSD often feel stressed, anxious and depressed, even in circumstances when they are not in any danger.

The kind of experiences by which people can develop PTSD would include:
• Combat
• Rape or Sexual Assault
• Terrorist Attacks
• Physical Violence including Sexual Violence
• Serious Accidents
• Natural Disasters

Some of the most common symptoms of PTSD include:

• Reliving the event, often triggered by things or events associated with the trauma • Flashbacks
• Avoiding situations which remind the victim of the event
• Negative feelings about themselves or others
• Unnecessarily on the alert or the lookout for danger

Recovery from PTSD can be a lengthy process, but there are certain types of therapy available to help victims, including Counselling, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and Hypnotherapy.

It is not possible, even using hypnosis, for the victim to forget the experience altogether. With hypnosis, it is possible to create some emotional distance so the sufferer can banish most of the negative feelings and emotions related to traumatic memory.

British hypnotherapist Steve Burgess, has written a book entitled ‘Famous Past Lives’ which I think it’s still available on Amazon. The book concentrated on three of his clients, all of whom were convinced they had lived before as famous historical figures.

Two women, both of whom were convinced they had been Queen Elizabeth I in their past life, had taken their fantasy to unreasonable extremes. 

The author of this mammoth piece of drivel really should start writing for Mills and Boon.

‘I’m Queen Elizabeth Ist! No… I’m Queen Elizabeth Ist! No… I’m Queen Elizabeth I, and so’s my wife!’

The book was worse than I expected and to be honest, I wondered who was fooling who. Seriously, the first client, Lisa, displayed all the symptoms of a serial fantasist.’Lisa is the only one of the clients… who did not come to me for help with a specific issue. etc.’ And there’s the first clue!

Her ‘evidence’ under hypnosis (there’s the second clue) is so full of school-girly fantasies about clothes, jewellery, men, love, romance (and lots of it) and roaring fires and four poster beds, and powerful male minions at her service, to be credible. There is nothing at all about politics, which would have been of paramount importance rather than the enormous pile of immature piffle reported in the book.

There is nothing there that she couldn’t have learned from either of the Cate Blanchet Elizabeth films. I have them on DVD. The client’s account of coming out of the cinema after watching Harry Potter and having the sudden urge to dance the volta, is an indication of her being emotionally highly strung, or at least someone who is easily gets over-excited, It’s also a tell-tale indicator of the woman’s mental state. Cate Blanchet dances the volta with Sir Walter Raleigh in Elizabeth, the Golden Age.

It is obvious to any student of the human condition that this is a woman who doesn’t simply want to be loved, as in a normal relationship. She not only craves romance, there are clear indications she craves obedience and the excessive attention that goes with it. All the signs are there and they should be recognised.

One of the responsibilities of the therapist is to be able to see through the fancies and work with the real underlying problems — without being bamboozled by the make-believe protestations of a fantasist. I’ll bet she has a collection of Elizabethan merchandise and that she drags her husband around all the historic sites in the country, in all weathers, and I’ll bet it drives him nuts. I’ll bet he’s also the sort of guy that goes along with it in exchange for a quiet life. I’m wondering if there sleep in four-poster bed?

Hubby of course will forever remain on the outside, uninvolved in the fantasy. His role will be unquestioningly supportive, but that is all, never a part of the make-believe world. His role is to silently observe while she touches the stonework of Fotheringay Castle, open 9.00am to 5.30pm May Bank Holiday to end of September.

She occasionally slips into that mock Shakespearean language she used under hypnosis when she’s giving her husband a tongue lashing. I also suspect he would be a much more revealing interview. On close examination, some of the language she employs is also straight from the films. I’ll bet she’s also got both Glenda Jackson portrayals and the earlier Bette Davis version, all the related Hollywood pap, all the guidebooks and anything else she can get her hands on.

I suspect that Mr. Burgess is not the only regression hypnotist she’s been to. It’s not unusual for fantasy prone individuals to do this sort of thing on a regular basis in order to affirm their fantasy. It’s an expensive hobby.

Deep down she really wants to be Elizabeth but also knows it can never be. So for her, this is the next best thing. All those nice therapists who reinforce the delusion and allow her to be Elizabeth — even just for an hour or so — can’t be wrong! There is a danger that the therapist becomes the enabler and contributor to the fantasy. Her completely ridiculous assertion that she was once Queen Elizabeth I is reinforced by another order of magnitude.

As for the book, I’ll bet she’s ordered more than one copy. I suspect Hubby will be suicidal by now, after all, he can’t possibly comprehend the higher plane she’s on, let alone play any meaningful part in it — after all, how could he… he wasn’t there! There’ll be no ‘Ooh, Sir Robert, let’s try the volta position!’

If she presented herself as a client to me, I would to try to find out what was missing in her life that makes her wish so much for this other life, a place where there are no 20th century conveniences and where even a queen of England has to pee in a bucket. Maybe deep down she’s hoping that one day, by some miracle, she might get invited to tea at the Palace — hoping that by some dreadful accident of history, it’s all been a terrible mistake and she should come straight away to take her place at the head of the nation.

Attention is what she came for and she was not disappointed, but what she really needed was the truth, because the client is not always right. But she’s in a book now, something which will convince her even more that ‘I’m special’.

Other than the excitement of their own vivid imaginations, there is not one shred of evidence that support these ‘past life’ fantasies. Hypnosis can play havoc with memory and imagination, both of which can be easily enhanced and manipulated if that is what one sets out to do — especially when a client is prone to flights of fancy.

There has been much research that proves music lessons and musical training from an early age improves spatial awareness.

Research has shown that the motor cortex, the cerebellum and the corpus callosum (which connects the two sides of the brain) is more developed in musicians than in those who have never had the opportunity to play a musical instrument.

Music lessons improve hand/eye coordination and pattern recognition. All those scales and arpeggios really do come in useful!

There are also therapeutic effects of great music and from the various components of really great music. Variations in mood, pitch, rhythm, speed, tone, etc. can be both profoundly relaxing and positively uplifting and exciting.

The appreciation of great music can activate the brain’s reward centres and depress activity in the amygdala, reducing the effect of negative emotions such as depression and fear.

Furthermore children who grow up with an appreciation of good music as part of their experience really do end up smarter than those brought up on a diet of endless pop junk.

Researchers from University College London Psychology & Language Sciences studied some of the ways in which every day social experiences put a strain on mental well-being. In an online experiment involving more than 2,000 people, they found that social differences alone are enough to strike paranoia. For example, differences in social status and political beliefs may cause people to suspect that others intend to cause them harm.

Before the experiment, each participant was given a questionnaire to assess their typical levels of paranoid thinking, their own perceived social status, and political affiliation. They were then paired up with others of varying social status and political beliefs. These differences were found to play a major role when it came to trust, with lower levels of trust linked to higher levels of paranoid thinking.

Being alert to social danger is key to our survival, but the study results suggest social difference alone encourages us to think that the other person wants to harm us.

Intense paranoia is also a symptom of mental ill health, and it is more common among people who perceive themselves to have low social rank. The findings could shed light on why paranoia is more common in those who are struggling on the social ladder or excluded by society.

In the study, participants were given a sum of money and asked to decide how they should share it — either split it 50/50, or keep it all. The other person was asked to rate the motivation of that person’s decisions based on self-interest and desire to deny them the money.

Regardless of the previously determined levels of paranoid thinking, the researchers found that people paired with participants of higher social status or different political beliefs were more likely to assume their choices were motivated by a desire to cause harm. But these differences did not affect their assumptions about self-interest.

The findings suggest that people who struggle with high levels of paranoia are equally well tuned to social difference despite sometimes seeming that they misperceive the social world. The research may help us to understand how exclusion and disadvantage fuel some of the most severe mental health problems. WHY exclusion and disadvantage fuel some of the most severe mental health problems is already understood.

Children can be cheeky monkeys, they also laugh like chimpanzees! Babies and baby chimps chuckle while inhaling and exhaling, unlike adult humans who laugh mainly during exhalation.

It’s thought that babies, like apes, don’t have full control over their vocal muscles, so they laugh as they inhale as well as when they exhale. But as humans age, laughter becomes less chimp-like and more human-like.

Both humans and chimpanzees are great apes, or Hominids, and include orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos. Chimps are our closest cousins – but laughter is a behaviour that differs between species. When an adult human laughs, they initially inhale before producing ‘ha ha ha’ sounds in short bursts, starting loud and then fading away.

As babies get older they start to laugh more like grown-ups. It may be that babies learn to imitate their parent’s laughter in the same way that babies learn to interpret the facial expressions, smiles and the tone of voice of their parents.

Researchers collected recordings of babies’ laughter aged between 3 and 18 months old. These were played to 196 volunteers and 15 expert phoneticians, who had to judge the extent to which the laughter was produced during inhalation or exhalation, and the extent to which they found the laughter pleasant and contagious.

The result of this experiment was that laughs produced while exhaling were rated as more pleasant and contagious than those produced while inhaling. But it was the older infants in the sample — the ones nearer the 18-month mark — who exhaled more as they laughed, suggesting that during this key period of development — between 3 and 18 months old — infants learned to exhale when they laugh.

Laughter produced by exhaling tends to be louder, which makes it easier for babies to communicate that they are having fun and want to continue playing. As babies get older, they learn the ‘communicative function’ of laughter and that this communication is better achieved by exhaling rather than inhaling. In short, babies may be subconsciously adapting their laughter to get the best reaction from their parents.

In another experiment, 102 people were asked to rate recordings of laughing babies and adults without focusing on their breathing and this time, the researchers found they preferred more singsong adult-style laughs even when they were not thinking about the style of the laugh.

Could it be that our behavioural and vocal repertoire is ancient — even inherited from the common ancestor we share with apes.

The study, entitled ’The ontogeny of human laughter’, was published in the journal Biology Letters.

In addition to laughter, like humans, chimpanzees can remember each other even after years of being separated.

Researchers headed by Dr Laura Lewis, from the University of California, Berkeley and Christopher Krupenye, from Johns Hopkins University, used eye-tracking cameras to record where the primates gazed when they were shown side-by-side images of other chimps or bonobos. One picture was of a stranger, while the other was of a chimp or bonobo they had lived with for a year or more at some point in their life — the chimp’s eyes lingered significantly longer on images of those they had previously lived with, suggesting a degree of recognition. They also looked longer at apes with whom they’d had more positive relationships.

In one case, a bonobo named Louise had not seen her sister or nephew for more than 26 years. When the researchers showed her their images, her eyes honed in on both of them.

The study proves how similar we are to these primates… and how similar they are to us.

Previous research shows dolphins recognise one another’s signature calls for up to 20 years. The findings also bolster the theory that long-term memory in humans, chimpanzees and bonobos likely comes from a shared common ancestor that lived between 6 and 9 million years ago.

These are not the only similarities between apes and humans. Like humans, monkeys also give in to peer pressure. A nine-year study of 250 Vervet monkeys in South Africa found that social traditions are transmitted through different communities of monkeys.

Scientists from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and Paul Sabatier University in France found that male monkeys who join sociable communities quickly adapt their behaviour to match the social mores of their new group. Three different communities of monkeys showed big differences in how sociable the monkeys were in each.

Members of one group exchanged grooming more reciprocally, meaning that when a monkey was groomed it would usually return the favour. Overall, the monkey’s behaviour adapted to that of each of the new groups they joined.

Primates, including vervet monkeys, have highly advanced social systems and can maintain long and complex relationships with other members of their species, using common social behaviours to establish and maintain new social bonds, as well as mimicking social behaviours and social fashions of the new group.

These changes in behaviour could be due to an unconscious mimicry or ‘peer pressure’ from other monkeys. Either way, social influences were definitely influenced by other members of the group almost certainly to help them become part of their new community and better integrate into a new group.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was the females who were largely responsible for setting social styles within a group and this influence was stronger when the groups had a higher ratio of females to males, suggesting that females act as ‘models’ for social learning and form the social core of the group. So just like humans then…

Human evolution has dictated that males have only (relatively) recently become involved in childcare. The human brain is now six times larger than any other mammal of our body size. Unlike all other mammals, at birth, babies brains are not yet fully developed and so are incapable of survival alone for a significant period of time.

At the beginning of human evolution, mothers turned to other females for support in looking after their babies, while human fathers were out hunting and gathering — a bit like Liverpool today. But around 100,000 years ago, evolution dictated that men too began to become involved fatherhood.

fMRI scans have measured brain activity while fathers watched videos of their children playing. Both mothers and fathers showed activity in areas of the brain linked to empathy and understanding the feelings of others, demonstrating the strong attachment both felt to their child.

However… in other areas of the brain, there were distinct differences. In mothers, the evolutionarily and ancient limbic system, home to the key characteristics of mothering and providing nurture and affection, was the most active part of the brain. In fathers, the relatively young neocortex — associated with ‘social cognition’ — was prominent, seemingly reflecting the father’s role in teaching and encouraging the child toward independence.

Mothering is as old as time itself and it’s present even in reptiles. But human fatherhood is hardwired into the newest and most recently developed areas of the brain.

Are people really willing to suspend their sense of right and wrong when it comes to their own family, even if it means breaking the law?

A University of Michigan study found that when a family member behaves very badly, other family members are often inclined to protect them and this familial protection becomes even more intense when a family member is guilty of a severe event, such as theft, blackmail and groping.

In a paper published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, the study authors claimed they were surprised that people become more protective of a loved one as the severity of the crime increased. A majority of the people interviewed predicted they would protect those close to them even in the face of very serious moral transgressions. This foible of human nature was seen regardless of gender, political orientation, morals or personal disgust by the offence.

The study collated answers from 2,800 people in ten separate studies. Participants were asked how they would react when someone close to them committed theft or sexual harassment. They were also asked about how they would react if they were asked by a police officer if they had any information about an immoral act they had witnessed.

The results showed that people would hide the truth and even lie about a criminal offence to protect their family. However, the same standards were not applied to strangers. In the case of strangers, participants wanted the perpetrator to be punished and said they would consider informing the authorities and even exile them socially.

Most people justify these decisions by claiming they would punish the wrongdoing themselves, rather than leaving the punishment to the courts. This way, people feel they are still able to maintain their self-image as a morally upstanding individual, and at the same time, preserve the close relationship.

It seems that loyalty is a powerful motivator that under certain circumstances can override the virtue of honesty.