Psychology
Sense and sensibility
Steven Pinker and Rory Sutherland on reason vs instinct
When push comes to shove
One thing that surprised every-one during lockdown was how many people derived unexpected pleasure from living under imposed restrictions. Can…
The whole picture
There’s an intriguing conversation on YouTube between Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of England, and the artist Damien…
Weapons of mass indoctrination
Peter Pomeranzev describes the refinement of thought-control techniques over the past century – and the worldwide competition to employ them
Could you live without sex or the Tories?
In idle chatter the other evening, somebody pooh-poohed champagne. He was a brave soul because in certain circles — and…
Signal failure
Why does virtue-signalling matter? It’s a fair question. After all, if people display virtuous behaviour, need we care about their…
California dreaming
Prince Harry’s very questionable new job
Powers of persuasion
The art of the public information ad
Chill out
Why I’ve warmed to cold showers
Shrinking debate
The problem with pop psychology
The Trumpian mirror
Trump hatred has been with us since he announced his candidacy five years ago. But we can all feel the…
Is liberalism really a mental illness?
Conservative pundits like Michael Savage and Mark Dice like to ruffle feathers by claiming that liberalism is a mental disorder.…
Confirmation bias
Diversity training doesn’t work
Donald Trump isn’t mad
It is alarming how psychiatric diagnoses have crept into the political commentary. Donald Trump, we’ve been told, has narcissistic personality…
All too kind
Are humans by nature really more puppy than wolf? Oren Harman tests the science
Being diagnosed as autistic was the happiest day of my life
It’s easy to forget that until the late 1980s the notion of an autistic person being able to write a…
Are you tingle-minded? The rapid rise of ASMR
I once had a flatmate called Tom, who behaved very oddly when our cleaner came round. On mornings when she…
Is the judiciary really so bad at judging character?
When I had a cough last week, my son Joe, who has autism, shouted at me and covered his ears.…
Levitating basketball players: investigating the psychic in sport
Years ago, a friend persuaded me that a reviewer should almost never give a book a bad review. Most books,…
The personality test that conned the world
The other day in the Guardian’s Blind Date column, two participants, or victims, finished off an account of their frightful…
My ex-lover’s T-shirt can join the other tragic tat in the Museum of Broken Relationships
I loved a man. But our affair was nasty, brutish and short. Copious weeping was my un-tart retort. All that’s…
The subtle art of showing off at work
This has been an interesting year for me. Back in January, I took up a full-time job as director of…
The rich literature of the game of poker
According to the subtitle, this is a collection of ‘short stories of long nights at the poker table’. Were that…
Help over the hump
Losing our way in life’s trackless forest, whither should we turn for solace and advice? Wisdom used to be the…
The snowflake factory
We’re training our children to be thin-skinned, censorious and belligerently entitled
