1.
Subtract: Why Getting to Less Can Mean Thinking More
In striving to improve our lives, our work, and our society, we overwhelmingly add, overlooking another powerful option—subtraction.
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2.
Why Aren’t Text Message Interventions Designed to Boost College Success Working at Scale?
A decade ago, it seemed like text-based interventions could help students meet their college goals. Now, those interventions don’t seem to work at scale. How are scientists meeting the problem of scalability?
3.
“Natural Is Better”: How the Appeal To Nature Fallacy Derails Public Health
People tend to see “natural” as a cue for “safe.” This fallacy is a component of vaccine resistance—but we may be able to flip this inclination to encourage uptake.
4.
The Future of Nudging Will Be Personal
While a nudge might appear effective because a population benefited on average, at the individual level the story could be different. It’s time nudges got personal.
5.
To Scale Behavior Change: Target Early Adopters, Then Leverage Social Proof and Social Pressure
How do you change behavior when the stakes are high and rewards uncertain? For a group fostering sustainable farming in Colombia, the key was understanding who was resistant and why, then tapping into social proof and social pressure at the right times.
6.
Cooperators, Crusaders, and the Complicit: The Trinity of Religious Moral Character
Psychologists have long wondered whether religion makes us more or less moral. The answer is more complicated than it might seem.
7.
Four Roles for a Behavioral Scientist within Your Organization
Designing, developing, and implementing products and programs is hard. Behavioral scientists can help. But only if you understand the roles they can play, the problems they can solve, and how they can add value to an organization like yours.
8.
Exploring the Links Between Autism and Invention
Scott Barry Kaufman speaks with Simon Baron-Cohen about Baron-Cohen’s new book, The Pattern Seekers, which makes the case that the same genes that give rise to autism are and have been crucial to humanity’s propensity to invent and innovate.
9.
The Usefulness of Our Delusions
Rather than seek to annihilate self-deception, a better goal would be to think carefully about what it does, and ask ourselves how we can work with it.
10.
“Urgency and Agency”: Michael Mann on Conquering Climate Despair
The fossil fuel industry has come up with sneaky new tactics to keep us from acting on climate change. Michael Mann shows us how to identify (and overcome) their anticlimate strategies.
