So You Think You’ve Been Gaslit
What happens when a niche clinical concept becomes a ubiquitous cultural diagnosis.
behaviors
Uber-style pricing is coming for everything
More and more industries are adopting “dynamic pricing” — and consumers aren’t happy.
Why are Russians so stingy with their smiles?
In the US, smiling is a reflexive gesture of goodwill, but Russians view it as a sign of stupidity. Social psychology research could help explain this cultural contrast.
To Make Your Product a Habit, Start With These Powerful Triggers
Learn how to create customer habits using powerful triggers like time, mood, location, and social influences. Discover techniques to boost product usage.
Why Do East Asian Firms Value Drinking? - by Alice Evans
East Asian businesses often go out drinking.
What is Maslow’s Hammer?
What is Maslow's Hammer? Maslow's Hammer says that we rely too much on familiar tools (not because they're good - only because they're familiar). As the saying goes, “When you have a hammer, everything’s a nail.” It's why doctors are more likely to recommend surgery for back…
What is the Concorde Fallacy?
What is the Concorde Fallacy? 🧠 The Concorde Fallacy describes how we will continue to defend a bad investment, even when that defense costs more than just giving up. In 1956, discussions started in England to create a supersonic airliner that would get people from London to NYC…
How the brain responds to reward is linked to socioeconomic background
The brain’s sensitivity to rewarding experiences — a critical factor in motivation and attention — can be shaped by socioeconomic conditions, according to an MIT study.
Precommitment: Intentionally Limiting Your Future Options – Effectiviology
How to spot a liar: 10 essential tells – from random laughter to copycat gestures
The Traitors has shown just how adept some people are at lying. Here, an ex-FBI agent, a psychologist and a fraud investigator share their best tips for detecting dishonesty
The Curiosity Matrix: 9 Habits of Curious Minds
The Curiosity Matrix maps nine common habits of curious people supporting personal and professional growth through curiosity-driven behaviors.
Mimicry, Camouflage and Deceptive Behavior
Mimicry, Camouflage and Deceptive Behavior of insects and spiders.
The Shirky Principle: Institutions Try to Preserve the Problem to Which The
desk moves
Dealing with surprising human emotions is one of the most challenging aspects of being a manager. Generally, when someone appears triggered, or angry, or som...
Why Incompetent People Think They’re Competent: The Dunning-Kruger Effect,
When surveyed, eighty to ninety percent of Americans consider themselves possessed of above-average driving skills. Most of them are, of course, wrong by statistical definition, but the result itself reveals something important about human nature.
Personal and political shaming is running hot, yet it doesn’t work | Psyche
When passions run high so does the urge to shame wrongdoers. But if the goal is to change, shamers should think twice
Tools for better thinking | Untools
Collection of thinking tools and frameworks to help you solve problems, make decisions and understand systems.
Shari Liu: How babies think about danger | TED Talk
Are babies oblivious to danger? It's not that simple, says cognitive scientist Shari Liu. Sharing surprising insights (and plenty of baby videos) from studies of early human development, Liu highlights the unexpected ways babies perceive and respond to risky situations — and…
15 Quotes on the Unparalleled Power of Example
Discover the power of examples in shaping our lives. Explore quotes on example and how they inspire us to reach new heights.
How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger
At the top of the world, the Inuit culture has developed a sophisticated way to sculpt kids' behavior without yelling or scolding. Could discipline actually be playful?
The Two Ways of Doing
Imagine two friends, Steve and Fred, chatting at a New Year’s party. Both of them resolve to abstain from alcohol for January, and attend the gym regularly. They shake on it. They don’t want to let each other down, and they both fulfill their commitments. Afterward, Steve keeps…
What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he’s not coming back?
“If you guys don’t give me a chance to repair my instrument, I’m not going back.”…
Psychology for UX: Study Guide
Unsure where to start? Use this collection of links to our articles and videos to learn about some principles of human psychology and how they relate to UX design.
How to be More Agentic
On a supposedly difficult thing
Building an antilibrary: the power of unread books
Unread books are as powerful as the ones we read. An antilibrary is a private collection of unread books capturing the vastness of the unknown.
Unlocking User Engagement: 8 Strategies to Drive Conversions in Web and App
Some apps or websites are beautiful, stylish, and well thought out in terms of UX, but have one problem: they are boring. These products can trigger both desire and resistance in the user at the same time. Here are a few tricks that will help solve this problem not from a…
The Sociological Eye: FIVE KINDS OF FRIENDS
The word “friends” has at least five different meanings: Allies Backstage intimates Fun friends Mutual interests friends Soc...
These are the mental processes required to tell a convincing lie
The cognitive work involved in lying is relevant to lie detection and could help explain why some people are better liars
Never say “no,” but rarely say “yes.”
"Focus" requires saying "no" to most things, but there's a way to do it that allows you to say "yes" exactly when it matters most.
The all-out revolt against Knitting.com helps explain boycotts at Reddit an
The knitting world rose up against corporate ownership—and displayed the power of online communities
Hagakure: Book of the Samurai - hagakure.pdf
Ness Labs Best Books of September 2023
What should you read this month? This is your September 2023 guide to discovering the most insightful, inspiring, and transformative books on mindful productivity, creative growth, holistic ambition, and developing a healthier relationship with work.
The Science of Gift Giving
There is a lot of social psychology out there providing information that can inform our everyday lives, and most people are completely unaware of the research. Richard Wiseman makes this point in his book, 59 Seconds - we actually have useful scientific information, and yet we…
When in Doubt, Copy
Easy and effective, copying is how we cope with unpredictability.
Aristotle’s 10 Rules for a Good Life
An ancient Greek recipe for happiness
Debiasing: How to Reduce Cognitive Biases in Yourself and in Others
Do You Know How to Behave? Are You Sure?
How to text, tip, ghost, host, and generally exist with others in society today.
The Michael Scott Theory of Social Class
Alex Danco's Newsletter, Season 3, Episode 2
The secret economics of the Birkin bag
On a flight from Paris to London in 1983 Jane Birkin, an Anglo-French chanteuse and actress, spilled the contents of her overstuffed straw...
How PEZ Evolved From an Anti-Smoking Tool to a Beloved Collector's Item
Early in its history, the candy company made a strategic move to find its most successful market
Why We Laugh
Laughter may be the best medician, but do we really understand why? In this edition of Two Guys on Your Head Dr. Art Markman and Dr. Bob Duke explore the psychology of laughter.
How to (Actually) Change Someone’s Mind
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How do you convince someone who, for one reason or another, doesn’t see eye-to-eye with you?
The Secret History And Strange Future Of Charisma
How our culture, politics and technology became infused with a mysterious social phenomenon that everyone can feel but nobody can explain.
The fear of being duped is ubiquitous, but excessive scepticism makes it ha
The fear of being duped is ubiquitous, but excessive scepticism makes it harder to trust one another and cooperate
How We Determine What to Believe as True
Psychologists have been studying a very basic cognitive function that appears to be of increasing importance - how do we choose what to believe as true or false? We live in a world awash in information, and access to essentially the world's store of knowledge is now a trivial…
Notes From the Inner Lives of Con Artists
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Venture inside the minds of some of the greatest scammers.
‘The Bear’ and the Need for a Place to Belong
The powerful moral message of FX’s hit show.
People Can Be Convinced They Committed a Crime That Never Happened
Lab-based research shows that adults can be convinced, over the course of a few hours, that as teens they perpetrated crimes that never actually occurred.
An Illustrated Guide to Mouth Gestures and Their Meanings Around the World
An excerpt from François Caradec’s book “Dictionary of Gestures.”
Taxonomy of procrastination
There’s a little accountant named Jim that lives in my head