In memory of Daniel Kahneman, who accelerated our understanding of the mind

March 27, 2024

Photo by Andreas Weigend on Flickr. Cropped but otherwise unaltered. Creative Commons CC BY-SA 2.0 Deed Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license

I'm not a person who has idols, but Daniel Kahneman came about as close as it gets for me. It is not an exaggeration to say that he revolutionized our understanding of the mind. Among many other concepts, Kahneman and his collaborators came up with the ideas of: Anchoring (where an irrelevant number can influence our judgments) Prospect theory (a theory of how we make judgments when there is uncertainty that incorporates a number of biases) The focusing illusion (where we overempha...

Seven simple but effective methods for improving your connection with others

March 15, 2024

Here are some of the most useful simple methods I've adopted for improving my connection with others (though I still have room for improvement): 1) When you like someone, greet them warmly, demonstrating with your face and body language that you like them. 2) Try your best to channel "interested attention" in conversations - where you give the other person your total focus while paying very close attention to what they are saying (and how they are saying it) and starting with the prem...