If your group includes a person who can hire or fire, groupthink comes into play.
Dunbar’s most recent research suggests even power-users of Facebook with 1,000 or more friends still communicate regularly with only around 150 people, and of that 150 they strongly communicate with a...
Do you vote? If not, is it because you think it doesn’t matter because things never change, or politicians are evil on both sides, or one vote in several million doesn’t count? Yeah, that’s learned he...
As the philosopher Bertrand Russell once said, In the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
Researchers concluded most people engage in magical thinking to some degree, assuming their thoughts can influence things outside of their control.
Finished to raise their hands,
Your effort is better spent outsmarting yourself than making empty promises through plugging dates into a calendar or setting deadlines for push-ups.
Your beliefs are rational, logical and fact-based, right? Well, consider a topic such as spanking. Is it right or wrong? Is it harmless or harmful? Is it lazy parenting or tough love? Science has an a...
You will soon realize you are not so smart, and thanks to a plethora of cognitive biases, faulty heuristics, and common fallacies of thought, you are probably deluding yourself minute by minute just t...
You can try to fight it back. You can buy a daily planner and a to-do list application for your phone. You can write yourself notes and fill out schedules. You can become a productivity junkie surroun...
You are unaware of the constant nudging you receive from ideas formed in your unconscious mind.
You are always looking for risks and rewards, but when you want to believe something is good you will unconsciously turn down the volume on the bad qualities, and vice versa.
Whether it’s playing guitar or writing short stories or telling jokes or taking photos—whatever—amateurs are far more likely to think they are experts than actual experts are.
Visiting friends just to shoot the shit is the human equivalent of picking ticks off of one another’s backs.
The tendency to believe vague statements designed to appeal to just about anyone is called the Forer effect, and psychologists point to this phenomenon to explain why people fall for pseudoscience lik...
The real trouble begins when confirmation bias distorts your active pursuit of facts.
The next time you get a pimple on your forehead, or buy a new pair of shoes, or Tweet about how boring your day is, don’t expect anyone to notice. You are not so smart or special.
THE MISCONCEPTION: Your opinions of people and events are based on objective evaluation. THE TRUTH: You translate your physical world into words, and then believe those words.
THE MISCONCEPTION: You see everything going on before your eyes, taking in all the information like a camera. THE TRUTH: You are aware only of a small amount of the total information your eyes take in...
THE MISCONCEPTION: You rationally analyze all factors before making a choice or determining value. THE TRUTH: Your first perception lingers in your mind, affecting later perceptions and decisions.