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...

Ways to develop new hypotheses about human psychology

November 16, 2017

How would you go about building improved models of human psychology so that you can better help people? It might seem nearly impossible at first, but data about psychology is all around us, and there are numerous approaches you could take to discover new insights. Here are 24 different methods you could use to better understand the way humans work. In each case, I use "trying to figure out new things about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)" as an example. What techniques am I leaving out...