Articles (page 7)

Anchoring is real, it is one of the best replicated findings in psychology, and the researchers who study it do not agree about how far it stretches. Here is the theory, the dissent, and what we…

Memory is supposed to keep the best moment and the last one and bin the rest. The only study that has tested that on a real holiday found the middle was never voted down. It had gone before the vote

The gap between the two voices is real and it has been measured, though what got measured is not the thing you can feel, and the popular explanation for it does not survive checking

The pre-ticked box is the most powerful thing on the page, and the evidence for it has just been through the roughest audit the field has seen. Here is what survived, what did not, and what to ask…

The hour is folklore. The night is real, and what it does to a thought that will not stop has been measured better than most people realise

Open plan was sold on collaboration. When somebody finally measured it with sensors instead of surveys, face-to-face interaction fell by about seventy per cent. Here is that finding, its limits, and…

Dunbar's 150 cannot be derived the way it was derived. The layered structure underneath it was then confirmed on 185,000 people, and the outermost layer is about 150. Both of those are true and…

Friction is not the enemy. Asymmetric friction is, and it is measurable without any psychology at all. Count the steps in and count the steps out.

Social connection predicts how long people live, at a size comparable to established risk factors. Whether the active half is being alone or feeling lonely is a real dispute, and the two best…