Search
Social Norms
The richness and variety of America’s food landscape, in a buffet of maps.
The idea is to study the thing itself — be it a work of literature, death, family, a car, a vaccine, or the hospital — without preconceived notions, trendy easy answers, or dogma imposed on it.
The debate goes back at least 400 years.
John Templeton Foundation
Perhaps there was something theatrically satisfying about a learned man waving around a flask of pee, looking at it from all angles, sniffing it, and making bold proclamations.
Over the past two decades, the proportion of those who identify as bisexual increased from 1.2% to 4.5%.
From smartphone envy to life dissatisfaction, the root cause of much unhappiness is that we are wired to imagine how things could be better.
Are people are more likely to act less emotionally and more rationally when speaking their second language?
Reject your Mental Map Oversimplifications.
Diogenes engaged in shocking behavior to demonstrate the contradictions, small-mindedness, and sheer absurdity of prevailing social conventions.
Germans are masters of building cars, cooking brats — and sitting while peeing.
How humans came to feel comfortable among strangers, like those in a café, is an under-explored mystery.
John Templeton Foundation
5mins
80% of the world was once polygamous. What happened?
It’s a lot easier to point out things that are gezellig (adjective) than it is to define gezelligheid (noun) itself.
Most people care what others think of them. In many situations, that can be leveraged for the common good.
5mins
Expert Louise Perry discusses the idea of sexual disenchantment, the commodification of sex, and the impact of the online porn industry on society.
Being a jerk gets you rich, promoted, and laid (if you're a man). But there is a downside.
7mins
Sexual attitudes are more man-like than ever. Here’s what that means for women.
Worldwide, 15% of children are born out of wedlock, but the figure varies from less than 1% in places like China to 69% in Iceland.
Your five-year-old can probably spot a cop-out.
Virtually anyone can now create convincing deepfakes. That doesn't mean you should.
6mins
Why marriage is thriving — and dying — in different American classes.
Success is about give and take — with a little more give.
Adopting a healthy scepticism towards inherited ideas means “emptying the container of the Self.”
The “money taboo” is not a single taboo, but rather an amalgamation of several smaller taboos tied to gender and socioeconomic class.
Million Stories
The majority of children who stutter will spontaneously recover from it without intervention, but some 20% of people do not.
31mins
Collective illusions — false assumptions about society that many people share — have existed for thousands of years in many different ways. Today, because of social media and modern technology, […]
You want your baby's name to be unique, but so does everyone else.
Something doesn't add up.
Americans are more willing to put the greater good above their own interests today than in the 1950s.