How to make your arguments stronger (hint: longer is not the answer)

Resist the temptation to bury people under a blizzard of evidence, says psychology researcher Niro Sivanathan. He explains why.

Ways to Get People to Do Things They Don’t Want to Do

Developing user habits is not the same as demanding compliance. But sometimes that’s the task at hand.

Healthy Self-Doubt

The Dunning–Kruger effect: you don’t know what you don’t know

Why do ignorant folks tend to overestimate the extent of their knowledge? How do incompetent people often seem to be unaware of how deficient their expertise is? Turns out, we are not very good at evaluating ourselves accurately. And one of the most obvious manifestations of…

The Concorde Fallacy and why people make bad decisions - Creative Samba

Why Informing your customers of a sunk cost can actually help you increase your sales.

Pay Attention: The Art of Noticing - Adobe 99U

22 Life Lessons I Learned From My Mentors That Every Person Should Know - Darius Foroux

I’ve been blessed to meet insightful people and mentors. If you want to learn from people you look up to, observe them.

Sort By Controversial

[Epistemic status: fiction] Thanks for letting me put my story on your blog. Mainstream media is crap and no one would have believed me anyway. This starts in September 2017. I was working for a sm…

Counterfactual Regret Minimization with Kuhn Poker

Chief’s Newsletter

Wandering the idea maze. I write about building software and businesses, psychology, cross-functional job roles, and how those all intersect. Click to read chiefofstuff, by Karl Yang, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.

How to Disagree with Someone More Powerful than You

Conflicting with your superiors may not be a daily occurrence, but there are times when it’s necessary. Here’s some tips on how to go about it.

Army Ranger School Is a Laboratory of Human Endurance

The military's toughest training challenges have a lot in common with outdoor sufferfests like the Barkley Marathons and the Leadville Trail 100: you have to be fit and motivated to make the starting line, but your mind and spirit are what carry you to the end. A Ranger graduate…

How OKRs can make you a better leader

Leaders need to lead by example using OKRs, showing that they are equally as committed to successful outcomes as anyone on the front lines of the business.

The Five Pillars of Gregg Popovich

Gregg Popovich, the crusty, ingenious NBA coach, will never write the management advice guide that business needs.

The IKEA Effect: How We Value the Fruits of Our Labor Over Instant Gratification

The IKEA effect is caked in myth, but the phenomenon of consumers valuing their own efforts is proven and potent.

Unlikely Optimism: The Conjunctive Events Bias

When certain events need to take place to achieve a desired outcome, we’re overly optimistic that those events will happen. Here’s why we should temper those expectations.

The Human Xerox

Why being copycats, something we do in settings big and small, might be key to being human.

Fun Delivered: World’s Foremost Experts on Whoopee Cushions and Silly Putty Tell All

[caption id="attachment_82071" align="alignnone" width="600"] Stan and Mardi Timm show off Johnson Smith novelties they've collected. Stan wears X-Ray Spe...

Panic Buying Coronavirus - Why We Buy Weird Things in Times of Crisis

With COVID-19 making its way around the United States, archaeology throws a light on panic buying and other odd consumer behavior.

The Power of Lampshading

How to turn Ignorance into Power

Chesterton’s Fence: A Lesson in Thinking

A core component of making great decisions is understanding previous decisions. If we don’t understand how we got “here,” we run the risk of making things much worse.

The Behavioral Economics Diet: The Science of Killing a Bad Habit

What really motivates you more, the promise of a reward if you succeed or a debt if you don’t?

Opinion | Are You an Anti-Influencer? (Published 2020)

Some people have a knack for buying products that flop, supporting political candidates who lose and moving to neighborhoods that fail to thrive.

How to Become a Great Impostor

Why do people believe a scammer? Consider the story of Ferdinand Waldo Demara.

Why Talented People Don’t Use Their Strengths

We often undervalue what we inherently do well.

Quotes and Lessons about Strategy from Machiavelli’s “The Prince” – Effecti

Reactance (psychology) - Wikipedia

In psychology, reactance is an unpleasant motivational reaction to offers, persons, rules, regulations, advice, or recommendations that are perceived to threaten or eliminate specific behavioral freedoms. Reactance occurs when an individual feels that an agent is attempting to…

Ask a researcher: How do needs drive intent?

Consumer needs spark consumer journeys. How can marketers identify those needs and address them? The latest consumer research from Google will help.

The dark side of expertise [LWN.net]

Ad Hominem: When People Use Personal Attacks in Arguments

Why We Love to Be Grossed Out - Facts So Romantic

Disgust may not be a straightforward extension of the immune system’s aversion to harmful substances, but rather “a psychological nebula, lacking definite boundaries, discrete internal structure, or a single center of gravity,” says psychologist Nina Strohminger.Photograph by…

The Passion Economy: A Conversation with Adam Davidson

How to navigate a new economy where developing your passion can be a path to success.

In a Life-or-Death Crisis, Humility Is Everything - WSJ

Airline pilot Alfred Haynes and other leaders who’ve saved lives show that modest people can achieve miracles under pressure.

Emotional Intelligence: The Social Skills You Weren’t Taught in School

How well do you recognize and understand your emotions? What about the emotions of those around you?

How Bullwinkle Taught Kids Sophisticated Political Satire

Culture critic Beth Daniels argues the cartoon moose even allowed viewers to reckon with nuclear war

Who Wants to Play the Status Game? | The Point Magazine

We seem to be less interested in either of these games than in exploring the connection between them—or rather, the philosophical question to which that connection points.

3 tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

Ever wish you felt like creating that presentation? Felt like doing that research? Felt like doing the dishes?

The Verbatim Effect: Why People Remember Gist Better than Details

Why Don’t People Return Their Shopping Carts?

Pulling up to a parking spot and finding a shopping cart there can be pretty frustrating. Why do people ignore the receptacle?

The economics of unused gift cards

Every year, Americans spend billions of dollars on gift cards. But what happens to the money when the gift cards go unused?

Why the French Don’t Show Excitement

Not only is ‘Je suis excité’ not the appropriate way to convey excitement in French, but there seems to be no real way to express it at all.

The Charisma Effect

How to bend people to your will.

‘Would You Be Willing?’: Words to Turn a Conversation Around (and Those to Avoid)

Choose your words carefully and you can get someone to change their mind, or see you in a new light.

The Elements of Good Judgment

Judgment—the ability to combine personal qualities with relevant knowledge and experience to form opinions and make decisions—is “the core of exemplary leadership,” according to Noel Tichy and Warren Bennis (the authors of Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls). It is…

How to Be Lucky

It pays to imagine your life is on a winning streak.

Brian Piercy on LinkedIn: The Surprising Value of Obvious Insights

"...Google's people analytics experts had been studying how to onboard new hires effectively. They came back with a list of tips. Here’s the one that jumped…

How Rituals of Pain Help Heal

A new study reveals how ceremonies involving physical suffering can be invaluable tools for building resilience and coping skills.

We Are All Confident Idiots

The trouble with ignorance is that it feels so much like expertise. A leading researcher on the psychology of human wrongness sets us straight.

The 7 psychological triggers to boost your eCommerce store’s sales

The psychology of gift giving

The holiday season is around the corner. For most of us, it means we need to get gifts for our loved ones—our family, our friends, maybe even for people we don’t know all that well, such as clients and coworkers. The holiday season is notoriously stressful. Surveys show that…