Category: Articles
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All Hands on Deck
Read more: All Hands on DeckBrains, animals, literal-metaphorical confusions–Robert Sapolsky considers, recalling this famous study along the way: Volunteers would meet one of the experimenters, believing that they would be starting the experiment shortly. In reality, the experiment began when the experimenter, seemingly struggling with an armful of folders, asks the volunteer to briefly hold their coffee. As the key…
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Neuromarketing
Read more: NeuromarketingUsing brain science to make you buy things. Neuromarketing’s raison d’être derives from the fact that the brain expends only 2 percent of its energy on conscious activity, with the rest devoted largely to unconscious processing…If pitches are to succeed, they need to reach the subconscious level of the brain, the place where consumers develop…
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More Procrastination
Read more: More ProcrastinationThis time, a long New Yorker article reviewing The Thief of Time: Philosophical Essays on Procrastination. This is the perplexing thing about procrastination: although it seems to involve avoiding unpleasant tasks, indulging in it generally doesn’t make people happy. In one study, sixty-five per cent of students surveyed before they started working on a term…
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On Procrastination
Read more: On ProcrastinationYANSS tackles procrastination at length…quoting this Jonah Lehrer piece along the way: “Don’t.” Thinking about thinking is ID’d as key: The now you may see the costs and rewards at stake when it comes time to choose studying for the test instead of going to the club, eating the salad instead of the cupcake, writing the…
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Sisters and Happiness
Read more: Sisters and HappinessDeborah Tannen looks at why having a sister makes people happier. My own recent research about sisters suggests a more subtle dynamic. I interviewed more than 100 women about their sisters, but if they also had brothers, I asked them to compare. Most said they talked to their sisters more often, at greater length and,…