Concepts (page 55)

Prosocial shame is Anna Lembke's term, from chapter 9 of Dopamine Nation (Dutton, 2021), for shame that leads to better conduct. Her claim is that the same feeling resolves well or badly according…

Prospect theory is Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky's 1979 description of how people actually choose between risky options, and it is the parent of loss aversion rather than a consequence of it. Its…

Remembering or thinking about something you need to do. Unlike ordinary memory, which retrieves the past, this is memory for an intention, and it surfaces unbidden while you are in the middle of…

When something is said to be what a people or a tradition believes, does or means, the sentence should make clear which of three warrants it rests on: a personal encounter, a second-hand anecdote…

Psychological acceptance is allowing an unwanted internal state to be present without acting to change it. Pooled across experiments in which people are instructed to do exactly that, acceptance…

Psychological essentialism is the belief that a category has an immutable underlying essence which causes its observable features and licenses inference about features you have not observed. Knowing…

Psychological flexibility is the capacity to stay in contact with difficult internal experience, thoughts, feelings and sensations, without being controlled by it, and to keep acting in the…

Psychological nutrients is Nir Eyal's macronutrient analogy for the three needs at the centre of self-determination theory: autonomy, meaning volition and control over your own choices; competence…

The feeling that something is yours, held whether or not it legally is. It raises what you think the thing is worth. It was the obvious candidate for what self-made objects gain once effort looked…

Psychological safety is Amy Edmondson's term for a shared belief that you will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes. Not comfort, and not…

Psychological targeting is predicting a person's personality from digital traces and then tailoring a persuasive message to the prediction. The term is Sandra Matz's in the sense the industry uses…

Rebecca K. Ratner and Barbara E. Kahn found that choices made where other people can see them carry more variety than private ones. The reason is anticipated judgement rather than taste: people…