I’ve noticed that people start with different assumptions about what usually causes large, positive changes in the world. It is rare for us to directly address these differences in worldview, even though they may contribute to difficulties seeing eye-to-eye on how we can make things better. For instance, I think some people believe that large, positive change usually comes about due to one or ...

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 belo...

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 tal...

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 sens...

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...

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 typ...

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 mis...

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 u...

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 t...

Personal freedom (often part of liberal and libertarian perspectives): (1) People seem better at understanding what is good for them, as individuals, than regulators are at figuring out what those same people need, so I think personal freedom to do what you like should be the default position unless there is a good reason to deviate from it. (2) I think it makes our society better, on avera...