I think that one of the most important skill sets for good thinking is “Nuanced Thinking,” which is what I call it when you approach a problem with open-mindedness while avoiding binary thinking traps (i.e., resisting dichotomies). Our brains, too often, are dichotomizing machines. We tend to simplify the world into true or false, good or bad, is or is not. This dichotomizing tendency works well ...

(co-authored with Kat Woods) When a friend or loved one has something bad happen to them, what should you do to help them feel better? This question can be difficult to answer because it seems that at different times people want different things: empathy, problem-solving, optimism, distraction, and so on. See for instance this study where people give divergent answers about what they want from...

As you have likely heard, the Coronavirus (a.k.a. COVID-19) has continued to spread throughout the world. As of March 4, 2020, cases of the virus have been confirmed in 73 countries, including 16 U.S. states. China had a massive outbreak, which mostly seems to be under control, but the virus is spreading exponentially in many other countries. Nobody knows what is going to happ...

Imagine you could program yourself like a simple robot, with rules like, "when situation X occurs, do Y." What rules would you choose to program yourself with to improve your life or the lives of those around you? Interestingly enough, we can program ourselves in this way, and it's not even that hard to do. As a simple example, you can program yourself so that when you FIRST ENTER YO...

If you want to build a great product, project, or service, then the "Meta Question" - "What don't I know that I must know?" - should be your obsession. The answer to the Meta Question is itself a question (the "Product Question"). The Product Question might be: "Why do our best users return to our product again and again?" And to answer this question, you ask the Tool Question ("What tools in the...

What makes for a good manager of a team? Below is a little framework I made to help answer this question, which I call: "a Good Manager C.A.R.E.S." Sometimes managers as a group get a bad reputation. Some people even wonder whether managers are needed at all since they don't seem to do any of the "real work." There are also plenty of bad managers who actually impede the people they manage....

It's fascinating to me that, despite all of humanity's incredible progress over the last few thousand years, so many profound mysteries about the nature of reality remain. Below is my list of what I see as the deepest mysteries.  What would you add to the list? — LIST OF DEEP MYSTERIES ABOUT THE NATURE OF REALITY — 1. THE UNIVERSE 1.1 Eternity - Will our universe la...

Written: March 27, 2019 | Released: August 30, 2021 In my experience, many obvious-seeming psychological concepts explode in complexity when you attempt to dissect them. For instance, trying to respond to a question about "why we forgive" made me realize there are a vast number of motivations for forgiveness. After someone wrongs you, you can forgive them based on:UNDERSTANDING • Empathy...

Have you noticed that people often talk more (or less) than their share in one-on-one conversations? What percent of the time should you talk when you are one-on-one with a close friend, acquaintance, or stranger? I ran a study to investigate that question using our Positly.com platform (n=143 participants in the US). See an image summarizing the results here: You might think that introver...

Written: May 17, 2019 | Released: July 9, 2021 A little game for you related to power: suppose that each of the supervillains listed below actually existed and that each had "become dictator of the world" as their only high-level goal. That is, their primary and permanent desire is to become the highest leader of a single world government. Based on each of their listed superpowers, which do yo...