psychology

as anyone ever given you something on the street, like a flower or a free sample of something? Do waiters at restaurants occasionally bring complimentary sweets along with your bill?

As innocent as these gestures may seem, they are actually relatively simple tricks to influence your behavior. You see, the first psychological principle of persuasion

Success breeds overconfidence like nothing else.

One of the most awe-inducing rituals on the planet, the hajj, stirs millions if not billions of people into a psychological whorl of synchrony, coordination, and sacrifice, creating a strong sense of unity and shared purpose. The Muslim community has, for its size, an incredible level of solidarity, in part because Islam has mastered the use of

In the end, Kaczynski and his followers made the same mistake as Skinner: they viewed us as mere puppets of our environment, devoid of agency and the ability to adapt. They needn’t have feared the world becoming a Skinner box, because, among all the papers written about that troublesome contraption, one fact is always overlooked: Skinner’s pigeons

The Audience Shortcut says:

You don’t need to know how to achieve your dreams.

You need to know who to create value for along the way.

Here are the four simple steps to implement the Audience Shortcut:

1. Choose your big dream. What goal feels just out of reach?


2. Identify your audience. Who could reduce your risk or accelerate your journey? (Hint:

And so, our initial impressions tend to hold an outsized impact, no matter the evidence that may follow.

When we play, the brain releases dopamine and oxytocin, two of our most crucial “reward chemicals.” These are pleasure drugs that make us feel good when we accomplish, or try to accomplish, anything that fulfills a basic survival need. Dopamine is the brain’s primary reward chemical, with oxytocin a close second.

Ever the curious scientist, Pavlov spent months studying how the flood changed his dogs’ behavior. Many were never the same—they had completely different personalities after the flood, and learned behavior that was previously ingrained vanished. He summed up what happened, and how it applies to humans:

High current profitability often leads to overconfidence among managers, who confuse benign industry conditions with their own skill – a mistake encouraged by the media, which is constantly looking for corporate heroes and villains.