What Silicon Valley gets wrong about taste.
But it was also, as I began to realize in my professional life, something that made people like, trust, and value you more.
shifting the focus of knowledge work from production to selection and curation.
Yes, it's good to do good things. It may be even more effective to tell people you're doing them.
Conversations around misinformation that assume everyone cares about literal truth may be missing the point.
suggests that some people consider it a “win” to lean in to known falsehoods.
The strongest predictor of whether someone believed in COVID-19-related misinformation and risks related to the vaccine was whether they viewed COVID-19 prevention efforts in terms of symbolic strength and weakness. In other words, this group focused on whether an action would make them appear to…
Picture this: A Slack channel for an open-source project that prominently displays "Be excellent to each other" in its community guidelines. Six month
These aren't moral failures—they're predictable system dynamics that we can recognize, understand, and potentially prevent.
In any community with strong values, there's social currency in being seen as embodying those values.
Micro expressions are very brief facial expressions, lasting only a fraction of a second. The Paul Ekman Group provides a variety of tools in order to learn how to spot micro expressions.
I thought for sure that I’d previously written about the secret jelly packet & pickle-based system that chefs at the Waffle House use to “store” all of the orders that come in for food during service, but I can’t find it in the a
01 Intro One of the best books I have read in the last few years is The Elephant in the Brain by Robin Hanson and Kevin Simler. The book makes two main arguments: a) Most of our everyday actions can be traced back to some form of signaling or status seeking b) Our brains…
New research on consumer behavior shows that we tend to match some types of choices the people around us make, but not others.
For a couple of centuries, the British were in an unlikely frenzy for the exotic fruit.
How do false beliefs spread, and what are the consequences?
Smiles can be a way to dupe people because they’re easy to fake – but we’ve figured out which smiles can be trusted
The psychological quirks that make it tricky to get an accurate read on someone's emotions
I’ve spent a lot of time recently thinking about different proof-of-work mechanisms. When I say proof-of-work, I’m not talking about consensus algorithms like the ones that some crypto currencies use. I’m talking about social networks.
Many brands overshoot the subtleties of virtue signaling. They preach, posture, and alienate the people they’re trying to impress. We show how big companies can better bang their virtue drums. #brand #marketing #PR #business #SocialMedia #CX
The most commonly used introduction to signaling, promoted both by Robin Hanson and in The Art of Strategy, starts with college degrees. Suppose, the…
When there is an opportunity to gain a positive reputation, individuals are more willing to sacrifice their immediate self-interest. Partner choice creates opportunities for competitive altruism, i.e. individuals compete to be regarded as more generous ...
Social scientists are uncovering the intricate group dynamics of gossip
Yard signs featuring this mysterious blue dot are quickly gaining popularity among Nebraska Democrats. Here's what it means.