I recently finished reading Bill Bishop’s The Big Sort. It’s a “big ideas” book and something of a road map to help you understand why the world (or at least America) is what it is today. The book begins with an insight: the 1976 Presidential election was highly competitive and only 26.8% of Americans lived… Continue reading Sorted
Tag: Psychology
More Human Than Human
I love reading about behavioural economics and how human nature limits our ability to make rational decisions. I love it even more when I find myself behaving irrationally despite being aware of it (this is all very meta). Here are two recent examples: 1) On Sunday I went for a run. In the crazy heat.… Continue reading More Human Than Human
Under Pressure
There have been two fascinating articles published in the past few days talking about how we perform under pressure. Both are fascinating reading. In the first, The Guardian examines why athletes choke. The short answer: you think too much. When you’re a master athlete, you have muscle memory and your actions are literally built into… Continue reading Under Pressure
The (Behavioural) Economist
I’ve noticed a lot of musings about behavioural economics over the past few months (to the point that Wendy’s currently taking a class on it at Columbia). A lot of it has been related Richard Thaler‘s recent book Nudge, plus the fact that he frequently consults Austin Goolbee, one of Obama’s top economic advisers. One… Continue reading The (Behavioural) Economist
Today’s Word of the Day: Apophenia
Today I read the most recent entry in Strange Maps, talking about humans tend to see things where they don’t really exist (read their blog entry for some great photos). There’s a technical word for this – apophenia. The best part of reading this article is that it anchored me to start seeing patterns where… Continue reading Today’s Word of the Day: Apophenia