When researchers asked runners to repeat a specific phrase in their heads, like "push," the runners performed substantially better than they had prior to the intervention.
Thanks to everyone who responded to last week’s request for thoughts on the Sherlock Holmes series that has taken up the blog for the last few weeks. I was surprised […]
Today, we say goodbye to Sherlock Holmes (for the rest of the series, on the importance of true observation, seeing what isn’t there and not just what is, and preventing […]
Today’s lesson from Sherlock Holmes deals with learning to cull and to cultivate knowledge in such a way that your decision process will be optimized for the question at hand, […]
Pay attention to what isn’t there, not just what is. Absence is just as important and just as telling as presence.
What it means to go beyond seeing and to actually observe.
The Asch effect has been replicated successfully numerous times, in a variety of contexts, and each time, peer pressure glows strong.
A recent study shows that the decision to have children, and especially to have them early, is a factor that contributes to women's educational attainment.
How does someone decide whether or not to offer a bribe? While there is a general consensus that bribery is not exactly the most moral act in the world, the […]
Self-control: we could all use more of it. Even those of us who are best at exercising self-control on a daily basis have so-called hot triggers, the special circumstances that would make us, too, lose our cool and start to behave less than rationally.
Our memories affect our choices. It makes a whole lot of sense: we decide based on what we know. And if we don’t have any experience with a particular decision, […]
Friday’s New York Times touts the health benefits of good posture: it helps avoid the pain (both physical and financial) of back and neck problems, improves muscle tone and breathing, […]
Gossip: you can’t avoid it. And maybe, you shouldn’t want to. Scientists have argued that gossip is an important tool for social cohesion and information transmission, allowing us to function […]
Yesterday, we celebrated Father’s Day. Today, let’s celebrate the wisdom of the female investor – or more specifically, what it is that generally makes her more financially successful over the […]
The perennial question: how does media affect action? Or, to put it in more specific terms, does watching violent things on TV, reading about risk-taking on the internet, or playing […]
A change in scale forces us to take note. Objects that we would never notice acquire significance, become worthy of examination and attention. In other words, they force mindfulness.
Whenever making claims about the brain and political attitudes, tread with care. It’s easy to open yourself up to intense criticism from the scientific community, on anything from methodology to […]
I can’t count the number of times I heard, “It’s not if you win or lose. It’s how you play the game” when I was growing up. And how often […]
While groups may have been wise at the start of the experiment, as soon as individuals within the group became aware of others’ estimates and choices, the diversity of opinions plummeted.
Choice is good. It’s always nice to have options. It makes us feel more in control; it supports our vision of ourselves as “deciders” in our own lives. But choice can also come with negative consequences.
