Articles (page 19)

A phrase sold on the claim that giving up control over other people reduces your distress, and nobody has run the test. The nearest clinical literature supports the first half of the idea…

The popular account treats following the crowd as a failure of nerve, and two economists disproved that in 1992 by showing that people reasoning perfectly well end up copying anyway. What separates…

The argument about attention asks what a screen does to you while you are looking at it. This piece asks what you were doing instead, and the one paper that estimates the trade in minutes says that…

The comparison between slot machines and apps is usually made about payouts. The stronger version is about what the machine is built to hit, and that claim has more support than the stake or the…

Your name breaks through a conversation you are ignoring for about a third of listeners in the laboratory. The people who notice are not simply the ones with the leakiest filter, and the group that…

Rehearsal helps when it runs through the steps and does worse when it runs through the result. The studies behind that measured skills, grades and recovery, and none scored a decision.

A pink cell in Seattle in 1979 gave a colour its name and a claim its reputation. The tests with a comparison group, in a county facility and in Swiss detention cells, found no calming effect of the…

Attention residue is usually described as the cost of switching. The studies behind it tie the cost to unfinished work and to expecting to return, and one of them tests a short plan that reduces it.

Positive affirmations are two practices with one name. Repeating a flattering sentence made students with low self-esteem feel worse in the best test of it, and reflecting on a value has small…