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Amanda Ripley
Amanda Ripley is a New York Times bestselling author, Washington Post contributor, and co-founder of consultancy firm, Good Conflict. Her books include The Smartest Kids in the World, High Conflict, and The Unthinkable.
19 min
Most people freeze in a crisis. Here’s why — and how to stop it
“The fear of panic has killed more people than most disasters themselves.”
1 min
Conflict, crisis, consumption: What’s eating our nation?
"The more uncertain and scary things get in the world, the more we as humans are drawn to simple dichotomies."
11 min
Depression and anxiety triggers are ‘best practices’ in bad journalism
"These days, no national news network is trusted by more than half of American adults. And that's a problem."
9 min
How your brain works in an emergency, in 9 minutes
"Humans, like most mammals, tend to shut down in really frightening situations for which they have no training or prior experience. Researchers call it negative panic. People do nothing. They shut down."
4 min
The one temptation to resist post-election: Good vs. evil
“Most of us aren't sure what to think about everything, but we don't really see that modeled anywhere, right? You're supposed to know for sure, and there's very little intellectual humility on social media or on TV.”
The groundbreaking optimism of catastrophe expert Samuel Henry Prince
How “Catastrophe and Social Change” (1920) became the first systematic analysis of human behavior in a disaster.