psychology

And knowing yourself, in terms of achieving what you want in life, means being aware of your strengths.

A plausible interpretation is that higher income is associated with a reduced ability to enjoy the small pleasures of life. There is suggestive evidence in favor of this idea: priming students with the idea of wealth reduces the pleasure their face expresses as they eat a bar of chocolate!

the moment. Have you ever had a fight with someone at home, then spent the whole work day trying to concentrate? Conflict pulls your mind in many directions; it is the opposite of concentration.

The place to begin is with motivation, which is what starts us down the path of peak performance. Yet, motivation, as psychologists use the term, is actually a catch-all for three subsets of skills: drive, grit, and goals. Drive, the subject of the next two chapters, refers to powerful emotional motivators such as curiosity, passion, and purpose.

you don’t have to do the thought experiment, you just intuitively know how quickly you would mindlessly eat through the close one while the far one went untouched. All pressures exist along a spectrum. Availability isn’t black and white, and by adjusting the strength of the inhibiting pressure that is availability—that is, by putting M&M’s in your

this context, as well, the framing experiment reveals that risk-averse and risk-seeking preferences are not reality-bound. Preferences between the same objective outcomes reverse with different formulations.

The law of small numbers is a manifestation of a general bias that favors certainty over doubt, which will turn up in many guises in following chapters.

The gap between Sellers and Choosers is remarkable, because they actually face the same choice! If you are a Seller you can go home with either a mug or money, and if you are a Chooser you have exactly the same two options. The long-term effects of the decision are identical for the two groups.

Serotonin is a calming, peaceful chemical that provides a gentle lift in mood.13 It’s that satiated feeling that comes after a good meal or a great orgasm, and it’s partially responsible for that post-meal/post-coital urge to take a nap.