Short of time? Read the key takeaways News outlets are structurally biased toward negativity. Violent, tragic, and catastrophic stories reliably attract more attention and engagement, giving media organizations strong incentives to emphasize bad news even when positive or improving trends exist in the real world. Consuming lots of negative news can harm mental health. Many studies link exposure to negatively framed news with worse mood and affect, helping explain why frequent news...

Short of time? Read the key takeaways Most anecdotes about treatments are very weak evidence. Individual stories of improvement are usually explained by misattribution, placebo effects, natural recovery, or random fluctuations. For this reason, anecdotes should generally be treated with skepticism rather than taken at face value. ⚖️ Under rare but identifiable conditions, a single anecdote can provide strong evidence. When an improvement is accurately reported, dramatic, quick,...

Short of time? Read the key takeaways. People rely on relational dynamics to judge cultishness.  When people rate groups as cult-like, they focus most on signs of control, isolation, and suppression of outside information rather than on unusual predictions or strange practices. Discouraging outside information is the strongest red flag.  The clearest single predictor of perceived cultishness is when a group tries to limit members’ access to alternative viewpoints. People appear highly...

Is life coaching worth it? Learn what coaching really is, who it helps, and how to spot good coaches—and avoid scams—in an unregulated industry.

Short of time? Click here to read the key takeaways! We ran a study to better understand the moral judgments of people in the US, and we found striking disagreement. When participants rated the immorality of scenarios, a substantial share of them routinely gave maximally opposite  judgments (0.0 vs. 5.0). Many scenarios showed almost as much disagreement as a totally random spread of answers, and extreme ratings (0.0 or 5.0) were surprisingly common (26% of all ratings). So far from being...

Short of time? Click here to read the key takeaways! A 71% increase can sound alarming, but without context, it can mislead. In the aspirin example, the relative increase is 71%, yet the absolute risk only rises from 0.18% to 0.31%. Both figures are correct, but they create very different impressions of the underlying risk. Relative and absolute percentages answer different questions. Absolute change measures the direct difference between starting and ending values, while relative...

Short of time? Click here to read the key takeaways. Some economists argue that gift giving destroys value. Because givers rarely know recipients’ preferences as well as they know their own, many gifts are worth less to the recipient than the money spent, creating what economists call “deadweight loss.” One estimate suggests billions of dollars in value are lost each holiday season. However, the “market value assumption” may miss the bigger picture. Some economists assume that a...

Discover why people often fail to act on their own values — and how to close the gap between what you care about and what you do. Learn how despair, denial, and defiance hold us back, and find research-based ways to live more in line with your principles.

Experts disagree on when Artificial General Intelligence will arrive—years or decades? Explore why forecasts vary and what it means for humanity’s future.

Key Takeaways Habits shape your life outcomes. From health to happiness to career success, much of what determines your future stems from your daily routines. Simple habits can snowball into major life improvements when maintained consistently. Building habits isn’t about hitting a magic number of repetitions. While automaticity helps, habits rarely become effortless. Factors like environment, motivation, and habit complexity matter far more than repeating a behavior a set number of...

Key Takeaways We ran a large U.S. study to understand how people make moral judgments. Our goal was to see which moral principles best explain why different people view moral situations as right or wrong. We discovered 15 core moral dimensions that strongly predict people's judgments. Together, these 15 factors do a good job of explaining how most U.S. Americans respond to moral scenarios. We developed a new way to measure and predict moral intuitions using personalized models. ...

Consider the following hypothetical scenario (warning: some will find it disturbing): Poe lives alone with their dog for many years, when one day the dog runs onto the street and is lethally hit by a car. Poe, while heartbroken about losing their dog, has heard that dog meat is supposedly delicious, so decides to cook and eat it. How immoral would you consider Poe's action in this situation? Some people think it's not at all immoral - others think it's moderately so, but not nearly as bad as...

Key Takeaways Many debates hinge on definitions. Disagreements about God, personhood, love, justice and more can all turn on how key...

Key Takeaways The claim that "You should only believe that for which you have sufficient evidence” is popular but it contains an...

Why is it that health recommendations often seem to contradict each other? Today, we’re going to offer you answers to that question, and...

Key Takeaways Statistics is a toolkit for thinking clearly. Understanding distributions, significance, and basic statistics concepts...

Key takeaways Evidence about our ancient ancestors’ behaviors can’t tell you what you ought to do today. It can hint at behaviors that...

Key Takeaways Good decisions require good “decision hygiene”. Daniel Kahneman emphasized “decision hygiene”: using structured methods...

Key Takeaways High IQ doesn't equal perfectionism. Despite cultural tropes like the “genius perfectionist,” the correlation we found...

Key Takeaways Common questions aren't reliable tests of evidence. People often make the mistake of thinking that questions like “Is this...

Key Takeaways Ethical persuasion is a learnable skill.  Persuasion is a skill like any other, and it is possible both to learn how to do...

Could you start a successful company?  Years ago, we wanted to help people answer this question about themselves. So, we extensively...

Key Takeaways Not all correlations mean that one thing causes the other. Some correlations are real but misleading. Others are simply...

These days, it can seem like everyone thinks they know a narcissist. This is reflected in Google Trends Data, with searches for...

What is the relationship between childhood trauma and adult anxiety and depression? Is trauma the key to understanding mental illness? A...