Personal Growth — July 2, 2010

Conscience v. Behavior

New research suggests that reciting maxims to one's self, such as "Everyone makes mistakes," can help the ego recover from guilt associated with acting against one's principles.

bigthinkeditor

New research suggests that reciting maxims to one’s self, such as “Everyone makes mistakes,” can help the ego recover from guilt associated with acting against one’s principles. “Hey, nobody’s perfect, right? After all, you live and learn. Everybody makes mistakes, and it’s well known that experience is the best teacher. String them together, and these familiar proverbs start to sound suspiciously like rationalizations for questionable behavior. They reinforce our threatened egos by insisting the offense we just committed, or mistake we just made, wasn’t really so terrible after all.”

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Neuropsych

25 years since Columbine: We’re closer to decoding mass-shooter psychology

Public mass shooters almost always have worldviews shaped by the "3 Rs": rage, resentment, and revenge.

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Thinking

Everyday Philosophy: “Is there anything wrong with trauma dumping?”

When does "oversharing" become an issue?

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Leadership

Adam Grant on how to identify and develop high-potential leaders

The ability to toggle between abstract and concrete thinking is a key differentiator of high-potential leaders.

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Business

Want true success? Be more philosophical about “good” and “bad” failure.

Bob Dylan gave us the paradoxical gem "there's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all." He had a point.

Starts With A Bang

The idea that matter is mostly empty space is mostly wrong

Practically all of the matter we see and interact with is made of atoms, which are mostly empty space. Then why is reality so... solid?

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