The Many Models for Depression

February 28, 2018

People often argue whether depression is, or is not, caused by a "chemical imbalance". Much of what happens in our brains is chemical, why would depression not be? If by "imbalance" we happen to mean "a state of brain chemicals that the patient doesn't want", as opposed to, say, some specific theory that is now discredited like "not enough serotonin" (i.e., the low serotonin myth), then depression can reasonably be thought of as a "chemical imbalance". Disagreement about whether depressi...

Anonymized Responses to Taboo Questions – A Social Experiment

February 14, 2018

If you run a meeting group or like to host events, you may want to try out my event format, "Anonymous Answers to Anonymous Questions," which allows attendees to see each other's (anonymous) answers to controversial, taboo, embarrassing, uncomfortable and rarely asked questions, and then discuss them as a group to discover what they can learn. I've included the details of the event format below, including materials you can use to throw your own version of it. Important Note: this event fo...

Simple Advice on Being More Likeable

February 2, 2018

Books about how to be likable and charismatic often say things like: LOOK make eye contact when people are talking to you (but look away occasionally so as not to be creepy, and look away for a greater proportion of the time when you're talking since that's what people do naturally) REPEAT reflect back to people what they've said to you (e.g., "So you're saying that…") ASK get people talking about themselves by asking questions, and follow up to their responses with further questions (...

Psychological Outliers

January 29, 2018

It's easy to underestimate how remarkably different our psychological experiences can be. "Psychological outliers" may be much more common than you think because there are so many ways a person can be an outlier. If you are a psychological outlier in some way, you may assume others are more similar than they really are (much the way that synesthetes, who experience a combination of different sensory inputs in their brains, often grow up believing that everyone has synesthesia). That means you m...

Testing a Theory Without an Experiment

January 25, 2018

You don't need to run an experiment to perform a valid test of one of your theories or hypotheses (whether informal or scientific). There is a technique, which I'll describe below, that can be far faster, and is used a lot less than it should be (especially when trying to test a theory in science, where it could save you an month long experiment, but also, with informal theories in daily life). I aspire to use this approach significantly more often than I do now. How to Test a Theory Without...

Disputes Over How to Use Statistics in the Real World

January 21, 2018

There is a surprising lack of consensus on how to do statistics, especially as applies to science. As the tool that underpins the scientific enterprise, you'd think we would have figured it out by now. You'd be wrong. The mathematical proofs are, of course, very rarely disputed. The use of mathematics is much more often disputed. Why do these disputes arise? I've observed five different types. Disputes in Applications of Statistics to Science (1) Disputes over philosophy: Exa...

Controversial Issues – Good, Bad or Both?

January 18, 2018

Nearly all controversial issues (i.e., nuclear power, marijuana legalization, and minimum wage increases) have both benefits and drawbacks. Yet our brains resist seeing issues that way. It’s easy for us to believe that our side is fully right, and therefore that the other side is completely wrong. That’s typically what both our own side and the other is convinced of, and usually, we’re all mistaken! Since most of us discuss these controversial issues with people who share our perspective,...

What People Want Most

January 14, 2018

What do people want more than anything else in the world? I explored this question by running two little studies across two different populations: mechanical turk (“mturk,” n=49, all U.S.) vs. my Facebook friends (“FB,” n=111, who tend to be in the U.S.) with different approaches, me hand categorizing written responses vs. participants selecting the category that best matches what they wrote using 24 categories in random order developed from the first study, including an “other” option. A...

What is a large correlation? Looking at the sizes of 166 correlations.

January 13, 2018

How large is a "large" correlation when it comes to studying people? Below are 166 (rather interesting!) size-ordered correlations that I calculated on 870 people in the United States, who were recruited using our study recruitment platform, Positly. All responses are self-reported by the study participants, mostly measured on a scale of 1-4 or 1-5, except those that suggest a different scale (e.g., number of minutes doing something, age, symptom scores, etc.) Keep in mind that if A an...

Thinking Through Harmful Situations

December 30, 2017

Possible solutions to a harmful situation you are in can usually be categorized into just four types. You can: Exit, Alter, React, or Reframe. To elaborate, if a situation is causing you harm, you can: (1) EXIT the situation so that it can’t harm you anymore. For instance, if you’re in a burning building, you can try to leave the building. (2) ALTER the nature or characteristics of the situation so that it harms you less, while still remaining in the situation, and otherwise behavi...