Today is Publication Day! 🎉 The Psychological Quest for Meaning is out! Aimed at researchers, but we hope it is readable for anyone interested in how humans make sense of their lives. Guilford Press is offering 15% off with code AU2E: www.guilford.com/books/The-Ps...

New Book Alert! 📘 How do our minds turn life’s chaos into something that makes sense? Our upcoming book explores the science of psychological meaning. I hope you preorder and let your future self thank you for finding meaning. @guilfordpress.bsky.social www.guilford.com/books/The-Ps...

The Psychological Quest for Meaning

How do we transform scattered experiences into a coherent narrative? What drives us—consciously or unconsciously—to seek patterns, purpose, and understanding? This is the first volume explicitly devot...

guilford.com

Check out a new @psychscience.bsky.social article by @ayeletfishbach.bsky.social and collaborators: People were more likely to stick with goals framed as enjoyable—not just important. People used a health app more when told it was “a fun game” rather than “a useful tool.” bit.ly/4obM70Y

Year-long longitudinal study by Woolley et al suggests intrinsic motivation (more than extrinsic motivation) both predicted, and causally increased, goal adherence for professional, financial, and health goals: buff.ly/uyALjnX via coauthor @ayeletfishbach.bsky.social

In a new article by Jiabi Wang & Team Scientist @ayeletfishbach.bsky.social, they find that helping people connect their goals can increase motivation. When people linked a health goal (like exercising more) to a financial one, they expressed more motivation to pursue it. bit.ly/44KGaze

Big news in social psych! The Handbook of Social Psychology just dropped its 6th edition. For the first time ever, it’s FREE. The first version was in 1954. The 2025 version is open-access. No paywalls. No barriers. Just decades of wisdom, ready to be read, downloaded, and shared. www.the-HSP.com

Math is hard

Opinion | Why Trump’s Tariff Math Is a Joke

A look inside the administration’s methodology is a real eye-opener.

nytimes.com

Shige Oishi just dropped by my office with his new book Life in Three Dimensions—and I’m excited to dive in! Shige’s been challenging us to think beyond the pursuit of happiness. What about meaning? What about a psychologically rich life? Turns out, there’s more to life than just feeling good

The Onion jokes that RFK Jr. wants measles deaths so common people stop caring. Funny—but also how our brains work. When a crisis affects many, people assume it’s less harmful. The logic? If it’s everywhere, surely someone’s handling it. Spoiler: They’re not. theonion.com/rfk-jr-vows-...

RFK Jr. Vows To Make Measles Deaths So Common They Won’t Be Upsetting Anymore

WASHINGTON—Addressing the ongoing outbreak in Texas that has infected at least 124 state residents and killed one child, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vowed Thursday to mak...

theonion.com

🚨 Is the peer review system broken? Our new PNAS paper dives into the biases, inefficiencies, and inconsistencies plaguing scientific publishing. Can transparency, training, and AI fix it? Evolution or revolution for peer review? 🔗 Read more: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... @balazsaczel.bsky.social

Oy www.science.org/content/arti...

NIH slashes overhead payments for research, sparking outrage

Move to cut indirect cost rate to 15% could cost universities billions of dollars

science.org

🚨 New Paper Alert! 🚨 How should scientists decide what to replicate & how? Our latest article explores: 🔍 Book of Truths vs. Book of Conversations – What's the purpose of replication? 📊 Balancing epistemic values, public trust & transparency. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... @clintin.bsky.social

📢 Academic publishing should serve knowledge, not profits. But commercial publishers exploit the system—leveraging unpaid labor, imposing paywalls, and charging high fees. 🚧 We explore alternative models & reforms to realign publishing with academia’s true mission. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

The misalignment of incentives in academic publishing and implications for journal reform | PNAS

For most researchers, academic publishing serves two goals that are often misaligned—knowledge dissemination and establishing scientific credential...

pnas.org

Which scientific results should be replicated? Our new PNAS suggests the decision depends on whether you subscribe to “the book of truth” or “book of conversation” @pnas.org @clintin.bsky.social

Clintin Davis-Stober@clintin.bsky.social · 2y ago

Now out in PNAS, we provide a conceptual framework for assessing replication decisions and replication reform. Do you view the scientific literature as a "book of truths" or a "book of conversations"? www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1... #philsci #science #SciSci #Metascience

Just because something is common doesn’t mean it won’t cause you harm. Thank you @nytimes.com and Peter coy for writing about our research. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/27/o...

Opinion | Why Common Problems Are Often Worse Than We Realize

It’s called the “big problem paradox.”

nytimes.com

Looking for a postdoc position? We'd love to chat with you! We have three positions. Each involves working with the faculty at Chicago Booth. First: Chief Scientist uchicago.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Extern... Send recommendations to Amy Boonstra, amy.boonstra@chicagobooth.edu.

Tired of the news? Take a break and listen to these #BehaviouralScience podcasts from Behavioural Grooves 👇 Their most recent episide is on how to achieve your New Year goals with @ayeletfishbach.bsky.social

We recently wrote about the value of having a goal—any goal—even if you'll never achieve it. Thank you, Ben Converse, Annabelle Roberts, and Marie Hennecke. compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

On the experience of goals: Differentiating goal‐generic value from goal‐specific value

We distinguish between goal-specific value, which refers to the intrinsic and extrinsic benefits associated with a particular goal (“value derived from the goal”), and goal-generic value, which refer...

compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

When you consider the prevalence of a problem, you infer it causes less harm. People believed dire problems—ranging from poverty to drunk driving—were less problematic upon learning the number of people they affect. @chicagoboothreview.bsky.social www.chicagobooth.edu/review/the-b...

The ‘Big Problem Paradox’

When something dangerous is common, it somehow seems less dangerous.

chicagobooth.edu

To eat healthily, think of healthy foods as deliciously prepared. It’s counterintuitive—people often picture white pasta smothered in tomato sauce and topped with parmesan, while envisioning whole wheat pasta as uncooked sticks. @chicagoboothreview.bsky.social www.chicagobooth.edu/review/how-m...

How to Make Healthy Food More Appealing to Americans

Describing how dishes are made increases people’s appetite for them.

chicagobooth.edu

A reminder that shared plates = shared minds. Thank you for featuring my research with Kaitlin Woolley! www.bbc.com/future/artic...

Why humans feel the need to feast together

For thousands of years, humans have come together in small groups to feast on food. Why is it important – and why do we still continue the tradition?

bbc.com

Thanksgiving alert! Kaitlin Woolley and I found that shared plates increase bonding and cooperation. Check out lnkd.in/gCxRvjEm. Perfect occasion to discuss climate action and what's your family doing. www.tedxchicago.com/aclimateacti...

Thanksgiving alert! @Kaitlin Woolley and I found that shared plates increase bonding and cooperation. Check out lnkd.in/gCxRvjEm

How Thanksgiving Dinner Can Make You A Better Collaborator

Believe it or not, whether it be at the house or back at the office, Thanksgiving dinner can make you a better collaborator.

forbes.com

My son’s dentist believes in incentives. As a motivation scientist I want to see the data.

Thanks for sharing! Ryan Carlson’s figure illustrates why it’s hard to see the information in failure and how to make it more likely that the information is seen.

koenfucius@koenfucius.bsky.social · 2y ago

Failures are hard to learn from, not just because they are unpleasant, but also because they appear uninformative, research by Carlson and @ayeletfishbach.bsky.social suggests. Overcoming these difficulties requires addressing both emotional and cognitive barriers: https://buff.ly/3ynp3HD

Why (and when) do we complete work too soon? We find it is when we seek closure. Check out this paper with Annabelle Roberts hbr.org/2024/10/rese...

Research: Why People Will Pay a Premium to Complete a Task Sooner

Traditional economic theory holds that people should always prefer to receive money as soon as possible and postpone paying debt as long as they can. Yet, a recent series of studies found that people ...

hbr.org