Phoenix of Love

There’s a whole emerging area of study that is like a quantum physics of the human mind. It is constantly churning out new research which shows that, when you look really, really closely at the human mind and its behaviour, there are extremely weird, irrational things going on. Loss aversion is one of my favourites [...]

One of the comparisons that pop psychology books love to draw between men and women is that, while women show support for friends’ problems by listening and sympathizing, guys like to jump in and suggest solutions after hearing the first few words. Most probably the man is doing this while slouching in an armchair watching [...]

It can be fascinating to learn about our psychological blind spots: the predictable mistakes that we’re uncannily likely to make because of the way our brains work. Loss-averse thinking is one of these. We will put more effort into avoiding a loss than we will into achieving an equal gain.
Here’s another of these oddities that [...]

Here’s another astonishing tidbit along the same lines as the Joshua-Bell-in-the-Washington-subway fiasco. A couple of psychologists conducted an experiment a while ago in which researchers stopped random pedestrians and asked them for directions. Partway through the directions, a couple of “construction workers” carried a large wooden door between the pedestrian and the researcher—and while the [...]

Unexpected side effects can be a serious pain in day-to-day life. They’re also one of the major issues in developing software.
t’s a problem of complexity. Computers are unfailingly methodical and logical; they do exactly what they are told. This makes them a fantastic crutch for the human mind, because they can handle enormously complex sets [...]

I am getting sick, so it should come as no surprise that immune systems are on my mind. What I’ve been considering, though, is whether there is an immune system IN my mind.
Explanation follows.
Our bodies have such fascinating and intricate mechanisms for fighting off and shutting out malicious invisible critters and other unwanted clutter. When [...]

Multitasking is starting to wear on me. There was a time when I prided myself on being able to do an enormous number of things at once; it can be a fun challenge to try to participate in a phone conference while chatting with someone on Google Talk, looking up rush hour train times, and [...]

While driving my thirty-mile commute to and from work, I often listen to music or audiobooks. They have redeemed hours of dull highway driving with entertainment and inspiration. But I’ve been finding that I sometimes enjoy the silence, especially after a day of frenetic work. The car gives me an excuse for uninterrupted reflection.
I think [...]

We are always underestimating the importance of our surroundings. I’ve found that I have to constantly remind myself to give them the attention they deserve, or else I will neglect them and eventually be dragged down by the results of that neglect.
Most often when I have a sudden burst of concern for my environment, I [...]