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The Real Problem With Hypocrisy
The New York Times: What, exactly, is the problem with hypocrisy? When someone condemns the behavior of others, why do we find it so objectionable if we learn he engages in the same behavior himself? The answer may seem self-evident. Not practicing what you preach; lacking the willpower to live up to your own ideals; behaving in ways you obviously know are wrong — these are clear moral failings. Perhaps. But new research forthcoming in the journal Psychological Science (and in collaboration with our colleague Paul Bloom), suggests a different explanation. We contend that the reason people dislike hypocrites is that their outspoken moralizing falsely signals their own virtue.
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CAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE HELP IN FLINT?
The New Yorker: A week after Donald Trump’s election, a thirty-year-old cognitive scientist named Maya Shankar purchased a plane ticket to Flint, Michigan. Shankar held one of the more unorthodox jobs in the Obama White House, running the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team, also known as the President’s “nudge unit.” When she launched the team, in early 2014, it felt, Shankar recalls, “like a startup in my parents’ basement”—no budget, no mandate, no bona-fide employees. Read the whole story: The New Yorker
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When a “Golden Opportunity” to Bribe Arises, It’s Hard to Pass Up
Studies led by researchers at VU Amsterdam suggest that the path to corrupt behavior may sometimes be a steep cliff instead of a slippery slope, contrary to popular belief.
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Pay Up: The Trick to Getting People to Pay Parking Tickets
Behavioral scientists collaborated with cities in Australia and the US to find cognitive cues to prompt drivers to pay their parking tickets.
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Why Narcissistic Leaders Are Prone to Overconfidence
Research suggests that overconfidence is strongly linked with narcissism and is particularly likely to emerge when highly narcissistic people feel powerful.
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The Friendship That Created Behavioral Economics
The Atlantic: The term “the economic man,” or homo economicus, is attributed to John Stuart Mill. It represents one way economists have studied people for decades—as rational, self-interested actors whose behaviors and actions can be modeled. But then came the psychologists. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky are often referred to as the fathers of behavioral economics, for demonstrating that the human brain relies on mental shortcuts and biases in decision-making, which often leads people to irrational ends.