psychology

“purpose-in-life” (the technical term) has been shown to lower incidences of stroke, dementia, and cardiovascular disease.16 Additionally, from a performance standpoint, purpose boosts motivation, productivity, resilience, and focus.

Contrast this tactic with that employed in The Sign of Four, when Holmes sets out to learn the particulars of the steam launch Aurora. “The main thing with people of that sort,” he tells Watson, “is never to let them think that their information can be of the slightest importance to you. If you do they will instantly shut up like an oyster. If you

Life satisfaction is not a flawed measure of their experienced well-being, as I thought some years ago. It is something else entirely.

Homo Sapiens (literally, “wise man”) are only “wise” because we redistribute most cognitive operations to others; we readily observe and copy the successful and can encode (most of) that knowledge for others to use. For example, if someone discovers how to grow corn, other humans watch the process and imitate their success; they do not waste

Faced with any problem they had not directly experienced before, the remote villagers were completely lost.

This is also quite healthy. Longitudinal studies show the people who live the longest aren’t the ones who get the most help; they’re the ones who give the most help.)

must suffer physical pain to build stronger bone and muscle, one must suffer emotional pain to develop greater emotional resilience, a stronger sense of self, increased compassion, and a generally happier life.

Perhaps Reverend Jones’s mistake was in teaching the Scriptures too well to Ms. Louie, especially Exodus 23:8—“And thou shalt take no gift; for a gift blindeth them that have sight and perverteth the words of the righteous.”

people care deeply about the meaning of their work, so by keeping pilots small and operationally dirty (yep, still fun to say), you reduce employee abrasion by minimizing investment. In a lovely demonstration of this effect, Dan Ariely and colleagues showed that if you pay people to assemble Legos, they will stop working much sooner if you