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people don’t do what they say they believe, they do what’s convenient and then they repent

Rory Sutherland • Rory Sutherland: The Wiki Man

THE LESSER-MINDS PROBLEM. University of Chicago psychologist Nicholas Epley points out that in day-to-day life we have access to the many thoughts that run through our own minds. But we don’t have access to all the thoughts that are running through other people’s minds. We just have access to the tiny portion they speak out loud. This leads to the

David Brooks • How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

I count myself among a growing number of scientists who believe that the construction of self identity is not much better than the Lo-fi representations of other people we hold in our heads.

Gregory Berns • The Self Delusion

A Harvard psychologist once asked Amos Tversky why he became a psychologist. “It’s hard to know how people select a course in life,” he said. “The big choices we make are practically random. The small choices tell us more about who we are. Which field we go into may depend on which high school teacher we happen to meet. Who we marry may depend on w... See more

SIX at 6: The Seemingly Frivolous, Reading A Tongue, Experiencing A Spoon, Authenticating Paintings, The Systematic Choices, and Great Revelations

Brackett reports that when you ask people in public where they are on the mood meter, almost everybody will say they are having positive emotions. When you ask people in confidential surveys where they are, 60 to 70 percent will put themselves on the negative-emotion side of the mood meter. That result is haunting, because it suggests that many of

David Brooks • How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

When I look around, I see evidence of this toggle switch everywhere. Notice how easily people who are normally compassionate drop that compassion when thinking and talking about members of a political party they hate—the “Them” political party? How these people are all about forgiveness with people they see as part of “Us” but are fine with permane... See more

Tim Urban • A Game of Giants — Wait but Why

Anchors can even influence how you think your life is going. In one experiment, college students were asked two questions: (a) How happy are you? (b) How often are you dating?

Cass R. Sunstein • Nudge: The Final Edition

People tend to gravitate to different sides of the explore/exploit spectrum. If you are high on openness, like I am, exploring comes easy. But it is harder to make a commitment and exploit what you’ve learned about yourself and the world. Other people are more committed, but risk being too conventional in their choices. They miss better avenues for... See more

Henrik Karlsson • Almost Everyone I’ve Met Would Be Well-Served Thinking More About What to Focus On

The Trolley Problem: A runaway trolley is about to kill five people on the tracks. You can pull a lever to divert it to another track where it will kill only one person. What is the ethical choice? The dilemma explores the conflict between utilitarianism (the greatest good for the greatest number) and deontological ethics (the belief that some acti