Sublime

Tight brands like Greenpeace, Trumpism or the modern Académie Française may appear like anomalies, but they are in fact deeply human—and highly predictable—reactions to loose cultures. The people in these groups felt destabilized by evaporating social codes, and in that mental state, welcomed in the strong voice of certainty. Where there is chaos,

from the perspective of the identity model of decision-making, turning down the popper makes perfect sense. The thought process would be more like this: “I’m a firefighter. You’re offering me a popcorn popper to get me to view a film on safety. But firefighters aren’t the kind of people who need little gifts to motivate us to learn about safety. We

Individual differences grounded in early socialization, genetic makeup, social context, and personality generate liberals and conservatives, Social Democrats and Christian Democrats, tolerant and intolerant individuals, more and less well-informed citizens, and sectarian partisan elites.

Nous allons tenter d’expliquer cette bizarrerie sociale par une approche cognitiviste, comme nous l’avions fait précédemment en évoquant les limites de la psychologie individuelle. Cette fois-ci, c’est au philosophe Jean-Louis Vullierme que nous devons les fondements de ce point de vue sur la psychologie sociale. Ce qui déclenche l’action d’un indi

Richard Thaler tells of a discussion about decision making he had with the top managers of the 25 divisions of a large company. He asked them to consider a risky option in which, with equal probabilities, they could lose a large amount of the capital they controlled or earn double that amount. None of the executives was willing to take such a dange

For reasons that need no repetition, the individual’s public preference depends on Ye, the expected level of the public opposition, and on x, his private preference. Given that his incentive to support the opposition varies directly with Ye and inversely with x, there is a critical value of Ye at which he will abandon the government for the opposit

Crowds always, and individuals as a rule, stand in need of ready-made opinions on all subjects. The popularity of these opinions is independent of the measure of truth or error they contain, and is solely regulated by their prestige.