The ostrich effect is a cognitive bias that causes people to avoid information that they perceive as potentially unpleasant. For example, the ostrich effect can cause someone to avoid looking at their bills, because they’re worried about seeing how far behind they are on their payments. Information avoidance can lead to detrimental outcomes in …
The principle of good enough suggests that you should identify the point past which putting more resources into something won’t improve it in a meaningful manner, so you should finish with it and move on. Essentially, this means that you should embrace the idea that good enough is good enough, instead of wasting valuable …
Parkinson’s law is the adage that “work expands so as to fill the time which is available for its completion”. This signifies that the more time people dedicate in advance to a certain task, the longer it will take to complete it, even if it could have been completed in less time. For example, …
Flirting is a key part of many social interactions. At the same time however, flirting is also a behavior that few people truly understand. Fortunately, psychologists have conducted quite a bit of research on the topic of flirting. In the following article, you will learn about the different styles of flirting, including the verbal …
An ad hominem argument is a personal attack against the source of an argument, rather than against the argument itself. Essentially, this means that ad hominem arguments are used to attack opposing views indirectly, by attacking the individuals or groups that support these views. Ad hominem arguments can take many forms, from basic name-calling to …
The Benjamin Franklin effect is a cognitive bias that causes people to like someone more after they do that person a favor, especially if they previously disliked that person or felt neutral toward them. For example, the Ben Franklin effect could cause someone who disliked you to start liking you after they do you …
When going over study material, there is an important distinction between two approaches, known as knowledge-telling and knowledge-building, that we can use in our own learning or promote in those that we teach: Knowledge-telling is an approach to learning and teaching that involves relatively shallow engagement with the study material, which consists primarily of …
The principle of charity is a philosophical principle that denotes that, when interpreting someone’s statement, you should assume that the best possible interpretation of that statement is the one that the speaker meant to convey. Accordingly, to implement the principle of charity, you should not attribute falsehoods, logical fallacies, or irrationality to people’s argument, …
Niccolò Machiavelli was an eminent philosopher and diplomat in the Florentine Republic, between the late 1400s and the early 1500s. His renowned writing on strategy and politics led to the creation of the term Machiavellianism, which refers to the use of cunning and duplicity in statecraft and in general conduct, and he is sometimes …
The overkill backfire effect is a cognitive bias that causes people who encounter a complex explanation to reject it in favor of a simpler alternative, and to sometimes also reinforce their belief in the simpler alternative. For example, if someone is presented with a complicated scientific explanation for a certain phenomenon, the overkill backfire effect …