Instead of Being Cynical, Try Becoming Skeptical
Cynicism and skepticism are often confused for each other, but they couldn’t be more different.
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What It’s Like to Be…a London Cabbie
Outsmarting drunks, competing with ride-share apps, and discovering that some of your passengers were Spice Girls with Jamie Owens, a London cabbie.
When It All Became Apparent
The idea of parenting styles is far-reaching but built on sparse evidence. A team of scientists have turned to parenting behaviors, rather than styles, to discover what matters most for children’s success.
What We're Reading
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AI Companies Are Trying to Build God. Shouldn’t They Get Our Permission First?
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Vox -
No, Culture is Not Stuck
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Wisdom of Crowds -
Three Receive Nobel in Economics for Research on Global Inequality
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The New York Times -
‘Place Authenticity’ Is an Important, Overlooked Part of Life
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Psyche -
What Really Fueled the ‘East Asian Miracle’?
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The Atlantic
Featured
What It’s Like to Be…a Life Insurance Salesman
Overcoming “soft objections,” hustling to line up meetings, and navigating the line between business and friendship with David Johnson, a third-generation life insurance salesman.
The Quest to Imagine a Workplace that (Actually) Values Work-Life Balance
Work-life balance is about making trade-offs. How might we design workplaces that encourage employees to choose the right ones?
The Questions at the Heart of Conflict and Peace
Behavioral scientists working in peace and conflict grapple with questions of how prejudice becomes violence, how exclusion begets extremism, and how capable we are of change. The answers are far from simple, but not out of reach.
Are We Too Impatient to Be Intelligent?
There are things we need to deliberately and consciously slow down for our own sanity and for our own productivity. If we don’t ask the question about what those things are, we might get things terribly, terribly wrong.
What It’s Like to Be…a Camera Operator
Framing a scene to draw in the audience, dealing with screaming directors, and getting lost in an actor’s performance with Pauline Edwards, a camera operator.
What Does It Take to Build Peace After Six-Decades of Conflict?
To help build peace in Colombia, we gave the people most affected by the conflict—victims and ex-combatants—a platform to share their stories with other Colombians across the country. Hearing those stories transformed how people understood their former enemies.
For Decades, a Behavioral Blind Spot Has Plagued Political Development
Attempts to improve governance in the world’s most troubled states have failed because they’ve been based on the rational design of formal institutions rather than the behavioral logic of the individuals that work inside them.
One Small Step, One Giant Heave
On Earth, what goes up must come down. In zero-g, what comes up, floats.
