The Best of Behavioral Scientist

We have more free time than ever before, but it’s so sliced and diced that we feel more time poor than ever. Here’s how to notice and overcome the time confetti in your life.

«When we try to have meaningful time off with friends and family, our alerts from work create guilt and dread over what we’re not getting done.»

Everyone knows that texting and driving is a terrible idea, but few understand why.

«Most crashes are caused by people like you and me who think they can pay attention to the road and do something else at the same time. »

We tend to assume creativity is a timeless human value. But creativity as the concept we know today emerged in the 1950s and '60s, driven by the needs of the modern corporation.

Most of the time, success comes from a well-placed tweak, a novel combination of two or more existing elements, or the better version of an idea or product not yet perfected.

«Often, the best way to get unstuck on the quest for originality is to combine two old ideas to form a new one, rather than searching for a single, novel creative nugget»

A new study featuring more than 7,000 participants from six countries found that choice deprivation—a feeling of not having enough to choose from—not choice overload is the most common consumer…

Feeling uncertain if you belong is normal. But for some, the uncertainty persists longer than others. A duo of psychologists designed an intervention to change that.

The infamous problem even professors and mathematicians got wrong comes down to one unintuitive inference—in the Monty Hall problem, Monty Hall is God.

When should you hold 'em and when should you fold 'em? Use this set of decision-making tools to help you identify when it’s time to move on and find the courage to do so.

In an adaptation from his book, Evolutionary Ideas, Sam Tatam introduces a framework for inventive problem solving developed by a Russian scientist and inventor in the Soviet era: the solution to your…

«There are consistent patterns of solutions.Solving contradictions creates breakthrough innovation.»

Self-growth isn’t always easy, or comfortable. Reclaiming discomfort as progress can help you learn more and stay more motivated.

«When people can positively spin otherwise negative cues—reappraise their discomfort as a sign of achievement—those cues become more motivating.»

In The Power of Regret, author Dan Pink offers readers a glimpse into the psychology of those moments that we often wish we had back.

In thinking about the future in a merely surface level way, we end up traveling to a different future than the one we meant to go to.

«failing to consider how much our future self will want to avoid the same negative emotions that we’re trying to avoid right now.»

But it’s exhausting when you’re one of the only ones carrying that weight.

How can you successfully understand someone else’s point of view, share yours, or even change someone’s mind?

What I learned about emotions when I traded Amsterdam for Ann Arbor.

A deeper understanding of what algorithms do and how they’re being deployed can save us from the whiplash between reverence and resignation.