Cui Bono

In theory, someone who hears "I feel bad when you do that" will feel less defensive and will be more likely to change his or her behavior to your liking than someone who hears "You make me feel bad when you do that." But does the choice of the pronoun "I" or "you" really make that much difference in how a listener reacts? Read More

That people should feel morally outraged toward a pedophilic predator and those who may have covered for the predator to protect their own interests needs no explanation. That much is a no-brainer. But why is the level of outrage so high that it extends toward those who merely question whether a cover-up occurred or whether the sanctions against the institution are fair? Read More

People sometimes argue that seeking pleasure (feeling good) and striving to be virtuous (being good) are at odds with each other. I think the issue is a little more complicated than that. Read More

Terri Conley of the University of Michigan claims that women and men are equally motivated to pursue pleasure in casual sex and that pursuit of pleasure explains sexual behavior better than concepts from evolutionary psychology. I explain why this claim is incorrect. Read More

Evolutionary psychologists and behavioral geneticists all agree that both genes and environments are equally important determinants of mind and behavior. Why, then, do a number of psychologists claim that nurture is more important than nature, and why do they falsely accuse evolutionary psychology of claiming the opposite view? Read More

Most people recognize meritocracy (a system where what you get is proportional to what you give) as a fair form of compensation. The problem is that we all start out in life with different resources. If Monopoly were like real life, some players would start out with $1500 dollars and other players would start out with $10. Is there a fair way of evening the playing field? Read More

There are no moral truths. We engage in ethical discussions, not to seek moral truths, but to advance our own interests. Engaging in ethical discussions only sometimes advances the interests of other people. Read More

We often associate freedom with being in control of things. While that might be true sometimes, it seems to me that sometimes the opposite is true. Read More

Professional personality trait psychologists take for granted the importance of personality traits. Thousands of non-psychologists flock to online testing sites to learn more about their traits. At the same time, there has been a persistent anti-trait movement in psychology. This post describes who these trait-haters are and what they might have against traits. Read More

Do the four agreements described by don Miguel Ruiz actually derive from ancient Toltec wisdom? I will bet that many hard-nosed skeptics will accept that idea about as readily as Mr. Lee's claim of using an ancient Chinese secret instead of Calgon to get shirts clean. More importantly, how wise is this wisdom? Read More