psychology

Earlier I traced people’s confidence in a belief to two related impressions: cognitive ease and coherence.

They pass on emotionally healthy, secure individuals because the secure partner’s solid boundaries don’t feel “exciting” enough to stimulate the constant highs necessary in the entitled person.

Kaczynski’s theories eerily prophesize the capture of society by gamification. While he overlooked the benefits of technology, he diligently noted its dangers, recognizing its role in depriving us of purpose and meaning. Today the evidence is everywhere: religion is dying out, Western nations are culturally confused, people are getting married less

The large impact of 0 ➞ 5% illustrates the possibility effect, which causes highly unlikely outcomes to be weighted disproportionately more than they “deserve.”

And the way we’re interconnected changes the way we see and process information that comes our way, which changes the culture. The form of the network changes the way the network operates.

When multiple curiosity streams intersect, you not only amp up engagement—you create the necessary conditions for pattern recognition, or the linking of new ideas together.2 Pattern recognition is what the brain does at a very basic level. It’s essentially the fundamental job of most neurons. As a result, whenever we recognize a pattern, the brain

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

For instance: If you have a job, the single point of failure is your boss. Your security comes down to a single person or entity.

But what if two vice presidents and several managers above you at your job are internal fans of your work? You’d be:

1. More likely to be spared in layoffs


2. Able to switch departments if something happened to your role

On average, doctors were just as likely to say they would prescribe the necessary drugs to blacks as to whites—and oddly enough, the more seemingly biased physicians actually treated the two groups more equally than the less biased ones.