Looking for an excuse to read more fiction? Fiction reading can help with understanding others. A recent study shows that children who read more fiction stories are better at inferring what other people are thinking and feeling. Being good at understanding others is important, not just for ...
What is Expertise? The Experts Disagree
Everybody’s an expert these days. Pest Control Expert, Plumbing Expert, Weather Expert, and so on. But what is expertise, really? Take a minute to think about what expertise means to you. If ideas like superior intelligence, heightened perceptual skills, and photographic memory come to mind, ...
Confirmation Bias: 3 Effective (and 3 Ineffective) Cures
Confirmation bias is a fancy way of describing our human inclination to see what we want to see. In other words, we like to look for and interpret information in ways that confirm our expectations. The language makes it sound like confirmation bias is something only scientists can be afflicted ...
Gain Cognitive Flexibility By Seeking Experiences that Test Your Morals
A family eats their dog after it has been run over by a car. Is this behavior right or wrong? Our lives are filled with moral questions. Some of them we don’t have to deliberate over very long. Most Americans say it’s “wrong” to eat dogs without much deliberation. That’s because there’s agreement ...
What if Pigs Really Could Fly? Get Creative to Predict Future Events
Thinking through incredible scenarios can be productive if you’re writing a fiction story. But, surely it won't help you predict future events? Or, will it? Research has shown that thinking about outcomes you believe to be unlikely, yet possible can help you anticipate things to come. When we ...