Do Social Scientists Know What They're Talking About?
The world is lousy with experts. They are everywhere: opining in op-eds, prognosticating on television, tweeting out their predictions. These experts have currency because their opinions are, at least...
View ArticleHow Southwest Airlines Is Changing Modern Science
The history of science is largely the history of individual genius. From Galileo to Einstein, Isaac Newton to Charles Darwin, we tend to celebrate the breakthroughs achieved by a mind working by...
View ArticleThe Psychology of the Serenity Prayer
One of the essential techniques of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is reappraisal. It’s a simple enough process: when you are awash in negative emotion, you should reappraise the stimulus to make...
View ArticleWhy Facebook Rules the World
One day, when historians tell the strange story of the 21st century, this age of software and smartphones, populism and Pokemon, they will focus on a fundamental shift in the way people learn about the...
View ArticleFewer Friends, Better Marriages: The Modern American Social Network
In A Book About Love, I wrote about research showing that the social networks of Americans have been shrinking for decades. Miller McPherson, a sociologist at the University of Arizona and Duke...
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Do Genes Predict Intelligence? In America, It Depends on Your Class
There’s a longstanding academic debate about the genetics of intelligence. On the one side is the “hereditarian” camp, which cites a vast amount of research showing a strong link between genes and...
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The Danger of Safety Equipment
My car is a safety braggart. When I glance at the dashboard, there’s a cluster of glowing orange lights, reminding me of all the smart technology designed to save me from my stupid mistakes. Airbags,...
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The Psychology of 'Making A Murderer'
Roughly ten hours into Making a Murderer, a Netflix documentary about the murder trial of Steven Avery, his defense lawyer Dean Strang delivers the basic thesis of the show:“The forces that caused that...
View ArticleThe Fastest Way To Learn
Practice makes perfect: One of those clichés that gets endlessly trotted out, told to children at the piano and point guards shooting from behind the arc. It applies to multiplication tables and...
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Money, Pain, Death
Last December, the economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton published a paper in PNAS highlighting a disturbing trend: more middle-aged white Americans are dying. In particular, whites between the ages of...
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The Curious Robot
Curiosity is the strangest mental state. The mind usually craves certainty; being right feels nice; mystery is frustrating. But curiosity pushes back against these lesser wants, compelling us to seek...
View ArticleThe Headwinds Paradox (Or Why We All Feel Like Victims)
When you are running into the wind, the air feels like a powerful force. It’s blowing you back, slowing you down, an annoying obstacle making your run that much harder.And then you turn around and the...
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The Danger of Safety Equipment
My car is a safety braggart. When I glance at the dashboard, there’s a cluster of glowing orange lights, reminding me of all the smart technology designed to save me from my stupid mistakes. Airbags,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Psychology of 'Making A Murderer'
Roughly ten hours into Making a Murderer, a Netflix documentary about the murder trial of Steven Avery, his defense lawyer Dean Strang delivers the basic thesis of the show:“The forces that caused that...
View ArticleThe Fastest Way To Learn
Practice makes perfect: One of those clichés that gets endlessly trotted out, told to children at the piano and point guards shooting from behind the arc. It applies to multiplication tables and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Money, Pain, Death
Last December, the economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton published a paper in PNAS highlighting a disturbing trend: more middle-aged white Americans are dying. In particular, whites between the ages of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Curious Robot
Curiosity is the strangest mental state. The mind usually craves certainty; being right feels nice; mystery is frustrating. But curiosity pushes back against these lesser wants, compelling us to seek...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Does Stress Cause Early Puberty?
The arrival of puberty is a bodily event influenced by psychological forces. The most potent of these forces is stress: decades of research have demonstrated that a stressful childhood accelerates...
View ArticleIs Tanking An Effective Strategy in the NBA?
In his farewell manifesto, former Philadelphia 76ers General Manager Sam Hinkie spends 13 pages explaining away the dismal performance of his team, which has gone 47-199 over the last three seasons....
View ArticleThe Importance of Learning How to Fail
“An expert is a person who has found out by his own painful experience all the mistakes that one can make in a very narrow field.” -Niels BohrCarol Dweck has devoted her career to studying how our...
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