Sublime

When psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi studied eminent scientists like Linus Pauling and Jonas Salk, he concluded that what differentiated them from their peers was their cognitive flexibility, their willingness “to move from one extreme to the other as the occasion requires.” The same pattern held for great artists, and in an independent study

had led to lasting changes in their personalities.

This evolving proto-WEIRD psychology gradually laid the groundwork for the rise of impersonal markets, urbanization, constitutional governments, democratic politics, individualistic religions, scientific societies, and relentless innovation. In short, these psychological shifts fertilized the soil for the seeds of the modern world.

The habits of mind we’ve covered—noticing new connections, going Tilt! at inconsistencies, finding flawed assumptions—may combat mental rigidity.

Edgar Cabanas et Eva Illouz notent que la révolution néolibérale des années 1980 a conduit au remplacement de la philosophie politique par la psychologie. Tout se voit ramené à l’intime. Cela permet de traiter « sous l’angle de la psychologie et de la responsabilisation individuelle les déficits structurels, les contradictions et les paradoxes

How do these generational traumas, and so many like them, impact the racial narrative we live in today? Might they have something to do with how we have become either desensitized or overly sensitive to racial harm? How might it help us understand the criminalization and mass incarceration of dark bodies in the United States and Australia?

The Geography of Thought: How Westerners and Asians Think Differently—and Why (2003).

In recent years, psychologists studying differences in educational achievement have been paying more attention to the question of ‘non-cognitive traits’, by which they mean something like personality, or character. It’s now recognised that the attitude students take towards the learning process, and the habits they practise, have a bigger impact on