We know them when we see them: The TV shows and movies we love, even though we just know they’re bad. The worthless books we simply can’t put down.

Yes, these are our guilty pleasures — what some people consider the junk food in our media diets. But if we enjoy them, why should we feel guilty? As it turns out, these so-called “guilty” pleasures can actually be good for us, so long as they’re enjoyed in moderation.

According to Robin Nabi, a professor at the University of California, a guilty pleasure is something that we enjoy, but we know we’re either not supposed to like, or that liking it says something negative about us.

Studies suggest that guilty pleasures can bring back some psychological resources. Besides, giving ourselves permission to enjoy downtime is also an important part of self-pity, which is an effective way of fighting anxiety and sadness. Perhaps the most important value of a guilty pleasure is the bond it can create between people.

If that’s true, why do guilty pleasures get such a bad reputation? Actually, it’s not the indulgences themselves, but the attitudes we take when talking about them. “We have the cultural value of media consumption being instructive, and that what we do should be about growing and achieving,” Dr. Nabi said. “We don’t focus as much on refreshment and enjoyment, and these are such important aspects of being a human being.”

Feeling guilty about activities we enjoy can diminish the benefits they offer us. But removing unnecessary embarrassment about our interests can enrich our social lives, which is why it’s time to get rid of “guilty pleasure” from our vocabulary.

While guilty pleasures benefit us in some cases, they can also push us to indulge in behaviors we feel guilty about. Therefore, it’s best to follow the age-old advice our parents taught us: Everything in moderation.

The climate crisis may lead the human race to decrease in size, as mammals (哺乳动物) with smaller bodies appear better able to deal with rising global temperatures, a leading fossil expert said.

Prof Steve Brusatte, a palaeontologist (古生物学家) at the University of Edinburgh, suggested that the way in which other mammals have previously responded to periods of climate change could offer an insight into humans’ future.

He compared the potential situation of people as similar to that of early horses, which became smaller in body size as temperatures rose around 55m years ago, a period called the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum.

Writing in The Rise and Reign of the Mammals, Brusatte notes that animals in warmer parts of the world today are often smaller than those in colder areas, an ecological principle known as Bergmann’s rule. “The reasons are not entirely understood, but it is probably, in part, because smaller animals have a higher surface area compared to their size than bigger animals and can thus better get rid of extra heat” he writes.

Brusatte said that becoming smaller was “a common way that mammals deal with climate change”. He added, “That’s not to say every species of mammal would get smaller, but it seems to be a common survival trick of mammals when temperatures spike pretty quickly, which does raise the question: if temperatures do spike really quickly, might humans dwarf, might humans get smaller? And I think that’s certainly convincing.”

In a recent study, researchers studying human remains over the past million years have also suggested that temperature is a major predictor of body size variation, while scientists studying red deer have said that warmer winters in northern Europe and Scandinavia may lead to the body size of these animals becoming smaller.

However, not all experts agree that rising temperature causes mammals to decease. Prof Adrian Lister, of the Natural History Museum in London, said the relationship shown by the recent human remains study is weak, while the strong relationship between temperature and mammal body size may often result from the availability of food and resources.

Lister doubts whether humans will shrink as the climate heats. “We are not really controlled by natural selection,” he said. “If that was going to happen, you’d need to find large people dying before they could reproduce because of climate warming. That is not happening in today’s world. We wear clothes, we have got heating, we have got air conditioning if it is too hot.”

Some of the greatest moments in human history were fueled by emotional intelligence. When Martin Luther King Jr. presented his dream, he chose language that would stir the hearts of his audience. Delivering this electrifying (展性的) message required emotional intelligence — the ability to recognize, understand, and manage emotions.

Emotional intelligence has been highly recommended by leaders, policymakers, and educators as the solution to a wide range of social problems. If we can teach our children to manage emotions, the argument goes, we’ll have less bullying and more cooperation. If we can cultivate emotional intelligence among leaders and doctors, we’ll have more caring workplaces and more compassionate healthcare.

Emotional intelligence is important, but the uncontrolled enthusiasm has obscured (掩盖) a dark side. New evidence shows that when people sharpen their emotional skills, they become better at manipulating (把持) others. When you`re good at controlling your own emotions, you can hide your true feelings. When you know what others are feeling, you can motivate them to act against their own best interests.

Social scientists have begun to document this dark side of emotional intelligence. In a research led by University of professor Jochen Menges, when a leader gave an inspiring speech filled with emotion, the audience was Jess likely to scrutinize (细察) the message and remembered of the content. Ironically (讽刺的是) audience members were so moved by the speech that they claimed to recall more of it.

The authors call this the awestruck effect, but it might just as easily be described as the dumbstruck effect. One observer reflected that Hitler’s persuasive impact came from his ability to strategically express emotions — he would “ear open his heart — and these emotions affected his followers to the point that they would stop thinking critically and just emote.”

Leaders who master emotions can rob us of our capacities to reason. If their values are out of step with our own, the results can be destructive. New evidence suggests that when people have self-serving motives (动机), emotional intelligence becomes a weapon for manipulating others. In a study led by the University of Toronto psychologist Stephane Cote, university employees filled out a survey about their Machiavellian (不择手段的) tendencies, and took a test measuring their knowledge about effective strategies for managing emotions. Then, Cote’s team assessed how often the employees deliberately undermined (逐渐削弱) their colleagues. The employees involved in the most harmful behaviors were Machiavellians with high emotional intelligence. They used their emotional skills to lower the dignity of their peers for personal gain.

Shining a light on this dark side of emotional intelligence is one mission of a research team led by University College London professor Martin Kilduff. According to these experts, emotional intelligence helps people disguise (伪装) one set of emotions while expressing another for personal Professor Kiiduit’s team writes, “The strategic disguise of one’s own emotions and the manipulation of others’ emotions for strategic ends are behaviors evident not only on Shakespeare’s stage but also in the offices and corridors where power and influence are traded.”

Of course, people aren’t always using emotional intelligence for nefarious ends. More often than not, emotional skills are simply instrumental tools for goal accomplishment. A research team discovered that founder Anita Roddick used emotional intelligence to inspire her employees fundraise for charity. As Roddick explained, “Whenever we wanted to persuade our staff to support a particular project, we always tried to break their hearts.”

There is growing recognition that emotional intelligence-like any skill-can be used for good or evil. So if we’re going to teach emotional intelligence in schools and develop it at work, we need to consider the values that go along with it and here it’s actually useful.