Category: ideas

“‘Keeping people in the dark about how much we like them will increase how much they think about us and will pique their interest,’ a research team reports in the journal Psychological Science.“

Charles Griswold: “What is forgiveness? When is it appropriate? Why is it considered to be commendable? Some claim that forgiveness is merely about ridding oneself of vengeful anger; do that, and you have forgiven. But if you were able to banish anger from your soul simply by taking a pill, would the result really be forgiveness?”

“Once upon a time, there was a giant called Gravity and a fairy called Cohesion. This is the story of how Victorians showed children the wonders of science.”

“Now that 97% of teens and more than half of adults play video games, companies have caught on to the medium’s addictive powers. Websites and apps are using virtual points, levels, leader boards, badges and challenges to motivate people to stay healthy, watch television or read a newspaper.”

“In a town where various consultants will tell you what to eat, when to bend your limbs, where to put your money and, above all, how to write a screenplay, Winston J. Perez is emerging as the guru of ‘Concept Modeling.’ It is a registered service mark that refers, more or less, to a process for getting to the bottom of things.”

“Rather than ask people how often they attend church, the better studies measure what people actually do. The results are surprising. Americans are hardly more religious than people living in other industrialized countries. Yet they consistently – and more or less uniquely – want others to believe they are more religious than they really are.”

Harvard Medical School researchers have found that “at least one condition can be calmed by placebo, even when everyone knows it’s just an inert pill. This raises a thorny question: should we start offering sugar pills for ailments without a treatment?”

“In the original version of secret Santa each member of a group – colleagues, say – is anonymously assigned to buy a gift for another and give it to them at the Christmas party. How sweet. Thankfully, that game has evolved into something more Machiavellian: thieving Santa, also known as dirty Santa or the Grinch game. As its name suggest, this revolves around theft and dirty tricks.”

“In light of recent research into the workings of the mind, personal responsibility is threatening to become a casualty of science, and free will is looking like a frighteningly fragile construct.” But new books by two different researchers come to a similar conclusion: we’re not off the hook for our decisions.

“We try to control them, and lose control of ourselves in the process. We try to protect ourselves from them and end up isolated from each other. Better, then, not to focus on bedbugs themselves but rather, on how the bedbugs make us act.”