Sleeping on the Job
For most of us, the thought of getting caught sleeping at our desks is stressful enough to send our brains a zippy little wake-up shot of...
Nightmare Boss: The Dangers of Sleep-Deprived Leadership
Let’s say you’re a sleep pro. You’ve learned the key role of REM cycles in encoding new memories, and the troubling statistics linking...
How the Decoy Effect Makes Dupes of Us All
Imagine that, on the second morning of a business trip, you go to unzip your suitcase, only to realize you forgot to pack any pants. With...
The Frequency Illusion: How Not to Fall for Argle-Bargle
Let’s say you’re reading up on landmark Supreme Court decisions of the past decade. (Hey, everybody needs hobbies.) You’re skimming an...
The Problem(s) With Myers-Briggs in Business
Imagine going to a corporate team-building event where everyone in your office was sorted and evaluated based on the results of taking...
The Pygmalion Problem
Just how much is your performance shaped by the way your boss talks to you? To what extent are our behaviors, attitudes, and identities...
Fallen Empires and Phony Wine: The Seersucker Effect
Making iffy predictions about our future: it’s been a hallmark of human behavior for at least as long as we’ve been recording our...
Confirmation Bias and the Parasites Nesting in Your Brain
"What is the most resilient parasite?” asks Leonardo DiCaprio in the 2011 movie Inception. “Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm?”...
Why Evidence Doesn't Matter
Given that a good reporter is supposed to be both truthful and balanced, how should journalists cover an issue when opposing camps refuse...
The Proportionality Problem
Decision making: it’s what humans do. Estimates are that the average adult makes 35,000 decisions a day. Of those daily decisions, 226...
