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Behavioral Science

Psychology116 insights0 followers

@psychology
Psychology has genuine flaws, but most of it consists of good ideas and dependable research.
Scott AlexanderPsychology Research Is Mostly Fine
@psychology
Most introductory psychology is useful and trustworthy, even though some theories and findings failed to hold up.
Scott AlexanderPsychology Research Is Mostly Fine
@psychology
Psychology includes psychophysics, psychopharmacology, psychometrics, personality, cognition, clinical work, development, and neuropsychology.
Scott AlexanderPsychology Research Is Mostly Fine
@psychology
Criticize social priming specifically. Treating every psychological subfield as equally discredited misses the evidence.
Scott AlexanderPsychology Research Is Mostly Fine
@psychology
Sasha Putilin’s failed replication found that synchronizing brain waves to an external stimulus did not improve learning speed.
Scott AlexanderPsychology Research Is Mostly Fine
@psychology
Replication problems affect economics, medicine, sociology, political science, and the hard sciences, with different responses across fields.
Scott AlexanderPsychology Research Is Mostly Fine
@psychology
Kitty Genovese and the Stanford Prison Experiment remain historically important, but their famous descriptions are likely inaccurate.
Scott AlexanderPsychology Research Is Mostly Fine
@psychology
The replication crisis primarily hit social psychology, especially social priming, rather than psychology as a whole.
Scott AlexanderPsychology Research Is Mostly Fine
@psychology
Widely hyped, counterintuitive findings collapse under replication more often than incremental extensions of established science.
Scott AlexanderPsychology Research Is Mostly Fine
@psychology
Researchers at the University of California San Diego ran 14 experiments on how doctors’ normalization language changes treatment-seeking.
Jake CurrieWhy Doctors Telling Patients Their Symptoms Are “Normal” Can Backfire
@psychology
Treatment-seeking improved when doctors supported care or explained that common symptoms still have management options.
Jake CurrieWhy Doctors Telling Patients Their Symptoms Are “Normal” Can Backfire
@psychology
Doctors should reassure patients while making clear that “normal” means common, not harmless or unworthy of treatment.
Jake CurrieWhy Doctors Telling Patients Their Symptoms Are “Normal” Can Backfire
@psychology
Calling symptoms “normal” discouraged patients from seeking further treatment, even when doctors expected reassurance to help.
Jake CurrieWhy Doctors Telling Patients Their Symptoms Are “Normal” Can Backfire
@psychology
Doctors mean “statistically common” by “normal,” but patients may hear “not worth treating.”
Jake CurrieWhy Doctors Telling Patients Their Symptoms Are “Normal” Can Backfire
@psychology
Without challenges exposing inconsistencies, people have little reason to develop detailed ethical or theological convictions.
Adam MastroianniIncentives are for losers
@psychology
Without chosen purpose, money, power, fame, and status occupy the psychological space where moral convictions should live.
Adam MastroianniIncentives are for losers
@psychology
Developing a value system resembles learning to read, not learning to speak. It requires sustained work to emerge.
Adam MastroianniIncentives are for losers
@psychology
Building life around arbitrary rewards abandons human agency. Act from purposes and convictions, not whatever incentive appears.
Adam MastroianniIncentives are for losers
@psychology
Bad incentives explain harmful behavior, but that diagnosis can turn incentives into commands people feel obligated to obey.
Adam MastroianniIncentives are for losers
@psychology
Moral action requires auditing and revising incentives for unintended effects, then doing right when they point elsewhere.
Adam MastroianniIncentives are for losers
@psychology
Permanent social problems demand backbone: doing what is right despite incentives, opposition, or personal cost.
Adam MastroianniIncentives are for losers
@psychology
A durable value system often begins with an assumption so disturbing that examining it forces a major reorganization of life.
Adam MastroianniIncentives are for losers
@psychology
People defend grades, money, and prestige as valuable to protect the system validating their lives, like failing governments defend currencies.
Adam MastroianniIncentives are for losers
@psychology
Thin moral convictions are easily overwritten by rewards and punishments when little substantive moral content exists to resist them.
Adam MastroianniIncentives are for losers
@psychology
“Bad incentives” can become a new “I was just following orders,” turning explanation into excuse.
Adam MastroianniIncentives are for losers
@psychology
Every incentive system eventually rewards people for optimizing the measurement instead of the outcome it was meant to achieve.
Adam MastroianniIncentives are for losers
@psychology
Add meaning through constructive friction: make, repair, garden, or build something with your hands.
The Curiosity Chronicle with Sahil BloomThe IKEA Effect: Why Effort Still Counts
@psychology
Choose hard now over easy now, hard later. Immediate difficulty often prevents greater difficulty later.
The Curiosity Chronicle with Sahil BloomThe IKEA Effect: Why Effort Still Counts
@psychology
We often value achievements because of the struggle, effort, resilience, and adaptability required to earn them.
The Curiosity Chronicle with Sahil BloomThe IKEA Effect: Why Effort Still Counts
@psychology
Address uncomfortable conversations early. Delay makes conversations harder, problems larger, and small repairs more expensive.
The Curiosity Chronicle with Sahil BloomThe IKEA Effect: Why Effort Still Counts
@psychology
Convenience can hollow out life by removing the friction and effort that sustain attachment and meaning.
The Curiosity Chronicle with Sahil BloomThe IKEA Effect: Why Effort Still Counts
@psychology
A difficult process satisfies by transforming you into someone capable, not merely by delivering a reward.
The Curiosity Chronicle with Sahil BloomThe IKEA Effect: Why Effort Still Counts
@psychology
People who assembled an IKEA storage box paid 63% more to keep it than those given one assembled.
The Curiosity Chronicle with Sahil BloomThe IKEA Effect: Why Effort Still Counts
@psychology
In an origami experiment, creators valued their own work roughly five times higher than neutral strangers did.
The Curiosity Chronicle with Sahil BloomThe IKEA Effect: Why Effort Still Counts
@psychology
Effort creates attachment only when you finish. Stop people just before completion, and the IKEA effect disappears.
The Curiosity Chronicle with Sahil BloomThe IKEA Effect: Why Effort Still Counts
@psychology
American Express increased retention by putting “member since” on cards, making continuity feel valuable and switching feel costly.
My First MillionRory Sutherland: completely legal marketing hacks that always work
@psychology
A technical advantage becomes commercially useful only when translated into the customer’s language and economic calculation.
My First MillionRory Sutherland: completely legal marketing hacks that always work
@psychology
Recurring irritation is innovation material: reverse the convention everyone dislikes and design the opposite experience.
My First MillionRory Sutherland: completely legal marketing hacks that always work
@psychology
Eccentric products can reveal larger markets by attracting customers who are not choosing among mainstream alternatives.
My First MillionRory Sutherland: completely legal marketing hacks that always work
@psychology
Economic logic predicts consumer behavior poorly. Lowering a price does not reliably increase demand.
My First MillionRory Sutherland: completely legal marketing hacks that always work
@psychology
Consumers happily accept sacrifices when they choose an explicit trade-off, but resent cost reductions imposed without consent.
My First MillionRory Sutherland: completely legal marketing hacks that always work
@psychology
Reducing user anxiety can be cheaper and more effective than improving the technical specification causing it.
My First MillionRory Sutherland: completely legal marketing hacks that always work
@psychology
McDonald's makes waiting feel better by showing visible progress, turning delay into intermittent rewards that sustain effort.
My First MillionRory Sutherland: completely legal marketing hacks that always work
@psychology
Uber’s growth came primarily from better psychology and reduced uncertainty, not reliably lower prices.
My First MillionRory Sutherland: completely legal marketing hacks that always work
@psychology
A high-quality flat white or nothing can increase throughput and preserve quality when customers value speed over endless customization.
My First MillionRory Sutherland: completely legal marketing hacks that always work
@psychology
Direct-response testing found that media choice could change performance fourfold, while creative execution could change it twofold.
My First MillionRory Sutherland: completely legal marketing hacks that always work
@psychology
Richard Thaler’s boardroom bet offered a 50% chance of raising profits 50% and a 20% chance of cutting them 30%. Six of eight division heads rejected it.
My First MillionRory Sutherland: completely legal marketing hacks that always work
@psychology
American Express’s cost-free “member since” designation generated billions in value by reducing cancellations.
My First MillionRory Sutherland: completely legal marketing hacks that always work
@psychology
An antiseptic’s sting can reassure people by becoming evidence that the treatment is working.
My First MillionRory Sutherland: completely legal marketing hacks that always work
@psychology
Car-rental companies obsess over price and driving, while customers suffer most during airport pickup before reaching the car.
My First MillionRory Sutherland: completely legal marketing hacks that always work
@psychology
Real-world outcomes are fat-tailed, not normally distributed: a few events or factors can dominate results.
My First MillionRory Sutherland: completely legal marketing hacks that always work
@psychology
In 1775, Watt and Boulton supplied steam engines upfront and charged for a share of the coal savings.
My First MillionRory Sutherland: completely legal marketing hacks that always work
@psychology
Watt and Boulton sold steam engines to mine owners in horsepower, not engineering specifications: the number of horses replaced.
My First MillionRory Sutherland: completely legal marketing hacks that always work
@psychology
A dishwasher’s deeper value may be hiding dirty dishes from view, not washing crockery.
My First MillionRory Sutherland: completely legal marketing hacks that always work
@psychology
A swimming pool can make wearing a bathing suit outdoors feel socially acceptable, even when nobody swims.
My First MillionRory Sutherland: completely legal marketing hacks that always work
@psychology
Removing The Economist’s paper-only decoy weakened paper-plus-digital subscriptions. Keeping it increased them roughly 200–300%.
My First MillionRory Sutherland: completely legal marketing hacks that always work
@psychology
Economics becomes more realistic when it starts with behavioral psychology and how humans choose, act, and decide.
TEDRory Sutherland: Perspective is everything
@psychology
One negative feature can drag down judgments of everything else when people experience product and context as one.
TEDRory Sutherland: Perspective is everything
@psychology
Breaking a long sequence into visible chunks and adding a midpoint makes completion more likely.
TEDRory Sutherland: Perspective is everything
@psychology
Happiness depends less on circumstances than on whether people experience them as chosen or imposed.
TEDRory Sutherland: Perspective is everything
@psychology
An efficient express lane can be hated when customers believe the company created delays to charge them more.
TEDRory Sutherland: Perspective is everything
@psychology
A fair tax debate asks two questions: how much people pay, and how much control they retain.
TEDRory Sutherland: Perspective is everything
@psychology
Change the comparison standard and perceived value changes, even when the underlying performance stays exactly the same.
TEDRory Sutherland: Perspective is everything
@psychology
A restaurant can create more value by fixing its smell and cleanliness than by improving already Michelin-starred food.
TEDRory Sutherland: Perspective is everything
@psychology
A longer wait with a visible countdown can feel better than a shorter wait with no information.
TEDRory Sutherland: Perspective is everything
@psychology
Branded analgesics produce greater measured pain reduction than unbranded analgesics, not merely greater reported relief.
TEDRory Sutherland: Perspective is everything
@psychology
A freshly washed car feels like it drives better, even though washing has not changed its mechanical performance.
TEDRory Sutherland: Perspective is everything
@psychology
Countdowns at red lights reduce accidents, while countdowns at green lights increase accidents as drivers rush to beat them.
TEDRory Sutherland: Perspective is everything
@psychology
In England, calling unemployment “a year off” turns embarrassment into upper-middle-class status.
TEDRory Sutherland: Perspective is everything
@psychology
Driving is harder than Go because it requires hierarchical situation recognition and contextually relevant knowledge retrieval.
Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #65
@psychology
Intelligence grows through action: an agent learns by anticipating what will happen after it acts on the world.
Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #65
@psychology
Shared knowledge still matters socially, but its sources shifted from books and newspapers to fragmented media.
Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #65
@psychology
A laboratory result describes the experiment first. Applying it to real life requires a major inductive leap.
Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #65
@psychology
Science can explain profound phenomena, yet the ultimate reason anything exists may remain beyond human understanding.
Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #65
@psychology
Even scientists rarely abandon important beliefs, building intellectual systems where alternative frameworks feel foreign and barely interact.
Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #65
@psychology
What built-in structure lets a machine learn quickly from only a handful of examples? AI still has no settled answer.
Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #65
@psychology
We still do not know whether atrocities reflect universal human nature or specific conditions like German efficiency and discipline.
Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #65
@psychology
System 2 demands mental effort, uses working memory and executive function, and leaves less capacity for other tasks.
Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #65
@psychology
Weak effects require larger samples, especially in between-subject experiments where participants never experience both conditions.
Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #65
@psychology
Hype, investment, and public intuition can reinforce each other until unmet promises trigger an AI winter.
Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #65
@psychology
AI raced from solving chess to Go, then from AlphaGo to AlphaZero, far faster than anticipated.
Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #65
@psychology
Great collaborators can understand an idea more deeply than the person who first said it.
Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #65
@psychology
Fifty-three behavioral-change studies by 20 teams failed to produce a successful way to increase gym attendance.
Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #65
@psychology
Autonomous vehicles generally treat pedestrians as obstacles to avoid, not people whose intentions and strategies they must understand.
Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #65
@psychology
Memory does not replay an experience. It reconstructs a schematic story from selected moments.
Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #65
@psychology
People choose vacations partly for future memories, so the best remembered trip may not be the best lived.
Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #65
@psychology
A language translator can perform brilliantly without understanding a single thing it is talking about.
Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #65
@psychology
The focusing illusion makes whatever has your attention feel more important and powerful than it really is.
Daniel Kahneman: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #65
@psychology
Being the boss creates authority. Credible expertise creates an authority people actually trust.
Summation with Auren HoffmanRobert Cialdini - 7 Principles of Influence Explained
@psychology
Improving your appearance is acceptable. Drastically altering it digitally can become artificial misrepresentation.
Summation with Auren HoffmanRobert Cialdini - 7 Principles of Influence Explained
@psychology
Representations of people should stay genuine and current, not rely only on idealized pictures from the past.
Summation with Auren HoffmanRobert Cialdini - 7 Principles of Influence Explained
@psychology
A customer reportedly traded a $2,800 Louis Vuitton bag for an earlier place in an Apple product line.
Summation with Auren HoffmanRobert Cialdini - 7 Principles of Influence Explained
@psychology
Increase compliance by giving genuine value before making a request or asking for agreement.
Summation with Auren HoffmanRobert Cialdini - 7 Principles of Influence Explained
@psychology
The most dangerous frauds do not just fool naïve targets. They fool other foxes.
Summation with Auren HoffmanRobert Cialdini - 7 Principles of Influence Explained
@psychology
Praise ethical behavior and report misconduct online. Your information helps shape the incentives around everyone.
Summation with Auren HoffmanRobert Cialdini - 7 Principles of Influence Explained
@psychology
“Operators are busy” makes viewers infer popularity, while “operators are waiting” signals no one else has bought.
Summation with Auren HoffmanRobert Cialdini - 7 Principles of Influence Explained
@psychology
In polarized conversations, listen deeply and ask non-evaluative questions before stating your position. Reciprocity opens ears.
Summation with Auren HoffmanRobert Cialdini - 7 Principles of Influence Explained
@psychology
Influence turns unethical when it counterfeits evidence, from invented sales to fake scarcity and cherry-picked authorities.
Summation with Auren HoffmanRobert Cialdini - 7 Principles of Influence Explained
@psychology
Self-deprecating humor makes necessary self-promotion easier to hear and easier to like.
Summation with Auren HoffmanRobert Cialdini - 7 Principles of Influence Explained
@psychology
A genuine compliment gives someone a reputation to live up to, making the praised behavior more likely to recur.
Summation with Auren HoffmanRobert Cialdini - 7 Principles of Influence Explained
@psychology
Asking restaurant customers to commit to calling reduced unannounced no-shows by 64%, and the reduction persisted.
Summation with Auren HoffmanRobert Cialdini - 7 Principles of Influence Explained
@psychology
A supermarket limited purchases to three units, and response doubled compared with the product’s previous response.
Summation with Auren HoffmanRobert Cialdini - 7 Principles of Influence Explained
@psychology
Telling university students a fundraiser came from another student increased donations by 450%.
Summation with Auren HoffmanRobert Cialdini - 7 Principles of Influence Explained
@psychology
One bonus exam point produced 291 returned questionnaires from 296 students. Tiny incentives can create astonishing response rates.
Summation with Auren HoffmanRobert Cialdini - 7 Principles of Influence Explained
@psychology
Technological progress can keep improving descendants’ lives, while opposing administrations can reverse policy gains, making economic growth politically durable.
Scott AlexanderContra Pritchard On Liberal Happiness
@psychology
Without a technological singularity, standard economic-growth projections reach the limits of today’s happiness scale around 2040.
Scott AlexanderContra Pritchard On Liberal Happiness
@psychology
Medieval England around 1000 AD had GDP per capita resembling modern Burundi’s, with reported happiness around 3 versus 6–7 among Americans.
Scott AlexanderContra Pritchard On Liberal Happiness
@psychology
U.S. GDP per capita rose from about $20,000 in the 1950s to $75,000 today, predicting only a half-point happiness gain.
Scott AlexanderContra Pritchard On Liberal Happiness
@psychology
Finland and Israel score 0.5–1 happiness points above the U.S. after adjusting for wealth, despite embodying sharply different political virtues.
Scott AlexanderContra Pritchard On Liberal Happiness
@psychology
Unaffordable housing violates liberal capitalism’s promises and creates a specific poverty, but does not prove wealth cannot increase happiness.
Scott AlexanderContra Pritchard On Liberal Happiness
@psychology
After shocks, low national happiness reinforces itself as people become less willing to display happiness when surrounding mood is low.
Scott AlexanderContra Pritchard On Liberal Happiness
@psychology
U.S. happiness wandered through 1970–2020, then fell abruptly, rather than peaking in the 1970s and steadily declining.
Scott AlexanderContra Pritchard On Liberal Happiness
@psychology
Economic growth generated about three happiness points since medieval times, while major policy differences appear to yield only 0.5–1.
Scott AlexanderContra Pritchard On Liberal Happiness
@psychology
U.S. output per capita is roughly 900 times pre-agricultural levels and 225 times levels around 1 CE or medieval Europe.
Scott AlexanderContra Pritchard On Liberal Happiness
@psychology
A 225-fold income increase predicts only about three extra happiness points on a 1–10 scale.
Scott AlexanderContra Pritchard On Liberal Happiness
@psychology
Across incomes from $10,000 to over $500,000 annually, happiness and log income correlate at 0.98–0.99 across several measures.
Scott AlexanderContra Pritchard On Liberal Happiness

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