Social World

Human dynamics in real life: relationships, boundaries, culture, influence, and the forces that shape how we behave with others.

People told to punch a bag while thinking about who made them angry ended up angrier than people told to do nothing at all — sitting still beat “healthy venting” outright, in the same experiment, on the same scale

  • 3 min read

The generation everyone calls the most narcissistic in history is, according to 546,225 people tested across four decades, measurably the least narcissistic in 40 years — and the decline got steeper after the 2008 financial crisis, not slower

  • 4 min read

When friendship starts feeling like something else: reading the shift honestly

  • 4 min read

The world is getting better, and almost nobody feels it

  • 4 min read

Responsiveness, not romance: what Gottman’s research on couples actually found

  • 4 min read

When work quietly moves in: how careers reshape the energy a relationship runs on

  • 5 min read

Staying resilient among narcissistic colleagues: a practical guide to holding your ground at work

  • 5 min read

The person you marry shapes your career more than most people admit

  • 4 min read

In 2010, researchers coined the acronym WEIRD for the narrow slice of humanity most psychology research draws its participants from, a slice that’s 96 percent of the field’s samples but just 12 percent of the world’s population, and I’m part of it

  • 4 min read

George Orwell gets quoted constantly, but he’s applied far less often

  • 4 min read

Narcissistic abuse: how a relationship alters your sense of what’s real

  • 5 min read

The questions that reveal personality, and why the answers matter less than you think

  • 5 min read
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