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The Cognitive Biases Tricking Your Brain
I am staring at a photograph of myself that shows me 20 years older than I am now. I have not stepped into the twilight zone. Rather, I am trying to rid myself of some measure of my present bias, which is the tendency people have, when considering a trade-off between two future moments, to more heavily weight the one closer to the present. A great many academic studies have shown this bias—also known as hyperbolic discounting—to be robust and persistent. Most of them have focused on money. When asked whether they would prefer to have, say, $150 today or $180 in one month, people tend to choose the $150.
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Research Suggests Exposure to Multiculturalism Prompts People to Inflate the Importance of Race
As the United States—and much of the world—becomes more ethnically diverse, how can we all get along? For many, the obvious answer is multiculturalism, the belief that respecting cultural differences can create a more just and equitable society for all. But new research provides evidence that promoting this philosophy can be highly problematic. In a sad irony, it finds exposure to a multicultural mindset prompts people to inflate the importance of race, bolstering the assumption that individuals can be fundamentally defined by their skin tone.
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The psychology behind why you always want to sit in the same seat
Ever noticed that you’re stuck in your ways when it comes to seating preferences? Do you always sit in the same chair when you enter a conference room, select the same bike each time you take a spin class, or choose the same side of the plane when pre-selecting a seat? It’s not just you: It’s environmental psychology. This behavior is an expression of “territoriality.” Territoriality is a spatial organizing mechanism that expresses itself in surprising ways. “Usually territoriality is thought of in terms of aggression and defense, such as when nations or gangs fight, but actually its most common purpose is to keep the peace,” says University of Victoria psychology professor Robert Gifford.
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How to Write a Book Without Losing Your Mind
A few months ago, I promised some nice people in New York that I would, sometime very soon, write a book. Since then, I have: Called my mom rejoicing. Called my mom crying. Considered changing my Twitter bio, then thought better of it. Considered emailing all my ex-boyfriends and mentors to let them know I’m an impostor, then thought better of it. Extensively researched three different long-form writing softwares, only to find that I prefer the first one I ever tried. Researched and bought several different types of special German pens, only to find that I prefer good old Paper Mates. Now just one task remains: Write the thing.
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People Aren’t As Morally Superior As They Think They Are
It’s a famous thought experiment, popular at a certain kind of dinner party: “The Trolley Problem.” Let’s say you were given the job of operating the lever to a pair of train tracks on which a mine trolley is hurtling at breakneck speed. If you do nothing, the trolley will kill five people standing on the track it’s currently on. If you pull the lever, you’ll divert the trolley, and instead kill one person who is standing on the other track. The classic thinking holds that most people will let five people die rather than pull the lever, because the thought of deliberately killing one person — even to save five others — is intolerable to anyone with an ounce of empathy.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: The Common Time Course of Memory Processes Revealed John R. Anderson, Jelmer P. Borst, Jon M. Fincham, Avniel Singh Ghuman, Caitlin Tenison, and Qiong Zhang What happens in the short period of time during which someone retrieves a well-known fact? Anderson and colleagues used magnetoencephalography (MEG), a neuroimaging technique that allows the mapping of brain activity on a millisecond-by-millisecond basis, to identify the stages of generating answers from memory, their duration, and their brain location.
