Before I studied psychology, I used to think that people would laugh when funny things occurred. While I was right about that, I discovered there are lots of other psychological factors that make people laugh other than the funny part of a joke. When someone laughs at a joke, there will usually be more than one reason that makes him laugh—and the more reasons there are, the more powerful the joke will be.

    I was attending a stand-up comedy show in Egypt, and when the man started to make fun of pedestrians crossing streets, everyone laughed their hearts out. The main reason those people strongly laughed was that almost all of them felt angry towards pedestrians who crossed streets carelessly. The joke wasn't only funny, it also made the audience feel that they were right about being angry at those pedestrians. That is, people were laughing both because of the funny joke and becauseof the happiness experienced as a result of the psychological support they got.

    The better a joke makes a person feel, and the more it includes other psychological factors, the more the person will like it. For example, if you envy one of your friends, and someone tells a joke that is funny and, at the same time, makes your friend seem stupid, then you will probably laugh at it louder than if you weren't jealous of him.

    In short, we don't laugh only when we hear something funny; we also laugh when we experience some kind of happiness that results from the other psychological factors involved in the joke. I strongly discourage making fun of anyone or be littling someone to make someone elselaug. All I want to explain is that if your joke supports a person's emotions, he will certainly like it a lot.

    When I was eight, I saw a movie about an island that had an erupting volcano and jungles filled with wild animals. The island was ruled by a beautiful woman called Tondalaya, the Fire Goddess of the Volcano. It was a low-budget(小成本) movie, but to me, it represented the perfect life. But through the years, Tondalaya was forgotten.

    The week I turned 50, my marriage came to a sudden end. My house, furniture and everything I'd owned was sold to pay debts that I didn't even know existed. In a week I had lost my husband, my home and my parents who had refused to accept a divorce (离婚) in the family. I'd lost everything except my four teenage children. I used every penny I had to buy five plane tickets from Missouri to Hawaii. Everyone said I was crazy to think I could just run off to an island and survive. I was afraid they were right.

    I worked 18 hours a day and lost 30 pounds because I lived on one meal a day. One night as I walked alone on the beach, I saw the red orange lava (火山岩) pouring out of Kilauea Volcano in the distance. It was time to live my imagination!

    The next day, I quit my job, bought some art supplies and began doing what I loved. I hadn't painted a picture in 15 years. I wondered if I could still paint. My hands trembled the first time I picked up a brush. But before an hour had passed, I was lost in the colors spreading across the canvas (画布) in front of me. And as soon as I started believing in myself, other people started believing in me, too. The first painting sold for $1,500.

    The past six years have been filled with adventures. My children and I have gone swimming with dolphins, watched whales and hiked around the crater rim (火山口边缘) of the volcano. We wake up every morning with the ocean in front of us and the volcano behind us. The dream I had more than 40 years is now reality. I'm living freely and happily ever after.

                                                                                             Three Boys and a Dad
      Brad closed the door slowly as Sue left home to visit her mother. Expecting a whole day to relax, he was thinking whether to read the newspaper or watch his favourite TV talk show on his first day off in months. “This will be like a walk in the park.” he'd told his wife. “I'll look after the kids, and you can go visit your mom.”

Things started well, but just after eight o'clock, his three little “good kids”—Mike, Randy, and Alex — came down the stairs in their night clothes and shouted “breakfast, daddy.” When food had not appeared on within thirty seconds, Randy began using his spoon on Alex's head as if it were a drum. Alex started to shout loudly in time to the beat(节拍) . Mike chanted “Where's my toast, where's my toast” in the background. Brad realized his newspaper would have to wait for a few seconds.

    Life became worse after breakfast. Mike wore Randy's underwear on his head. Randy locked himself in the bathroom, while Alex shouted again because he was going to wet his pants. Nobody could find clean socks, although they were before their eyes. Someone named “Not me” had spilled a whole glass of orange juice into the basket of clean clothes. Brad knew the talk show had already started.

    By ten o'clock, things were out of control. Alex was wondering why the fish in the fish bowl refused his bread and butter. Mike was trying to show off his talent by decorating kitchen wall with his color pencils. Randy, thankfully, appeared to be reading quietly in the sitting room, but closer examination showed that he was eating apple jam straight from the bottle with his hands. Brad realized that the talk show was over and reading would be impossible.

    At exactly 11:17, Brad called the daycare center(日托所).“I suddenly have to go into work and my wife is away. Can I bring the boys over in a few minutes?” The answer was obviously “yes” because Brad was smiling.

Let E-bikes Power New York's Transit Future

    Providence, R. I., just became the 13th city to develop an electric-assisted bike-share system, which runs or is developing bike-share networks in cities across the United States. Ironically, the Brooklyn-based company cannot operate in its hometown of New York City,due to the wrongheaded ban on electric bicycles.

    In many major cities in the U. S. and abroad, e-bikes are flourishing and helping to solve major urban challenges. Stockholm is adding 5, 000 e-bikes to its bike-share system. UPS is delivering packages in Hamburg using electrically-assisted cargo tricycles. And San Francisco's DoorDash food delivery service has found e-bikes to be the best mode to navigate heavy traffic and limited parking.

    In striking contrast, New York City insists e-bikes are banned under law. More than 900 e- bikes were seized and more than 1, 800 summonses（召回）were issued by the New York Police Department in 2017,following Mayor de Blasio's decision to limit e-bike usage, despite the fact that no data or records exist to show e-bike-related safety incidents.

    Who does the e-bike restriction hurt? The e-bikes seized in 2017 primarily belonged to food delivery workers, who are immigrants from Asia and Latin America. New Yorkers love their delivery: A new study from the New York City Department of Transportation found that more than half of city residents receive food deliveries at least a few times per month."

    In fact, the top three neighborhoods for e-bike summonses-the Upper East and West Sides and East Midtown-also consisted of more than 70% white residents. It's difficult to divorce the penalty of workers of color from the predominantly white, rich neighborhoods to whom the meals are delivered.

    It is true that the rush to maximize delivery numbers leads to higher speeds and potentially dangerous biking. To that end, the city should improve and enforce safe cycling and expand bicycling infrastructure to ensure safe passage for cyclists and pedestrians.

    Outside New York, cities and companies are finding that e-bikes are convenient, have low carbon footprints and require less space than cars on city streets. As New York City seeks to improve traffic, better air quality and encourage active modes of transportation, it is confusing that a mode that checks all of those boxes would be outlawed.

    The city must stop pedaling backwards on both workable transportation modes and the racially-charged policies surrounding them. It is time for New York City to embrace e-bikes as the very useful, worker-enabling, convenient and environmentally-forward mode that they are.

    Your local grocery store is a psychological minefield (布雷区), where even the bananas are ripe with mystery.

    ⒈Southpaws (左撇子) have an invisible (看不见的) advantage

    You've probably seen that stores keep go-to items—produce, meats, dairy—on the outer edge. But did you notice that most of them are set up to make you run counterclockwise (逆时针)? Ninety percent of us are right-handed, so we buy more when it's counterclockwise. You'll also often find the dairy section in the back left corner：Because dairy is likely on your list, stores make sure you take the longest route to get there. In fairness, it's also a more convenient place to put a fridge.

    ⒉Everything is in its place

    It's safe to say that nothing you see on a shelf is there by chance. The cookies on sale at the end of a passage are likely the result of smart product placement. More expensive items are usually placed at an adult's eye level, while colorful treats and other products for kids are positioned lower—to catch the attention of children.

    ⒊Time goes by so slowly

    Stores rarely have windows or clocks. With no reference to the outside world, customers can easily lose track of how long they've been there so that they can buy more. Grocery stores may use another trick to control your sense of time: small floor tiles (瓷砖).

    Women are friendly. But men are more competitive. Why? Researchers have found it's all down to the hormone oxytocin （荷尔蒙催生素）. Although known as the love hormone, it affects the sexes differently.

    "Women tend to be social in their behavior. They often share with others. But men lend to be competitive. They are trying to improve their social status," said Professor Ryan.

    Generally, people believe that the hormone oxytocin is let out in our body in various social situations and our body creates a large amount of it during positive social interactions （互动） such as falling in love or giving birth.

    But in a previous experiment Professor Ryan found that the hormone is also let out in our body during negative social interactions such as envy.

    Further researches showed that in men the hormone oxytocin improves the ability to recognize competitive relationships, but in women it raises the ability to recognize friendship.

    Professor Ryan's recent experiment used 62 men and women aged 20 to 37. Half of the participants（参与者）received oxytocin. The other half received placebo （安慰剂）.

    After a week, the two groups switched with participants. They went through the same procedure with the other material.

    Following each treatment, they were shown some video pictures with different social interactions. Then they were asked to analyze the relationships by answering some questions. The questions were about telling friendship from competition. And their answers should be based on gestures, body language and facial expressions.

    The results indicated that, after treatment with oxytocin, men's ability to correctly recognize competitive relationships improved, but in women it was the ability to correctly recognize friendship that got better.

    Professor Ryan thus concluded: "Our experiment proves that the hormone oxytocin can raise people's abilities to better distinguish different social interactions. And the behavior differences between men and women are caused by biological factors （因素） that are mainly hormonal. "