Brain Meets World - June 2022

164 Pages·2022·78.4 MB·English

Brain Meets World
BY B E H AV I O R A L S C I E N T I S T
Editor
Evan Nesterak
Senior Advisors
Dave Nussbaum
Mitra Salasel
Senior Editors
Cameron French
Antonia Violante
Elizabeth Weingarten
Visual Editor
Liam Speranza
Consulting Editors
Michaela Barnett
Stephanie Tam
Editorial Interns
Heather Graci
Anupriya Kukreja
Artist
Liam Speranza
Design
Journey Group
Printer
Modern Litho
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2 | Brain Meets World
FROM THE EDITOR
e fall in love with our theories and ideas. Inside
the dreamy reaches of our minds, the controlled
confines of our labs, our offices, our studios,
we build what we think are elegant solutions.
Yet most of us do not want our contributions to
remain forever untested; hopeful, hypothetical,
withering in obscurity. We would rather our work
be used to address real problems, to further human
advancement, to help us answer our deepest, most
motivating questions. This means that, eventually,
our ideas and theories must venture beyond the
boundaries of our minds and into the chaos and
disorder of the real world. 
What follows is a glimpse into these journeys.
The electric, surprising, painful, and peculiar
paths that our ideas take—and take us on. From
how, where, and why inspiration happens, to
the obstacles we face and how we adapt, to the
peaks and pains of discovery, to the challenges of
mastering the knowledge we acquire, and to the
reflections clarifying where we’ve been. Upon our
return, we hope we’re wiser than before. But there’s
no guarantee.
The backdrop for our story is the world of
behavioral science, which offers a one-of-a-kind
stage to explore the odysseys of our ideas. Here, the
author, setting, and main character of our ideas is
the same—ourselves.
Introduction | 3
Where We Begin | 8
Journey to Robbers Cave: Part 1 by Jennifer L. Bazar | 12
CHAPTER 2
Call to Adventure
Betsy Levy Paluck, The Art of Psychology No. 1 | 19
Journey to Robbers Cave: Part 2 | 32
What Shape Does Progress Take? by Lee Anne Fennell | 36
l Step, One Giant Heave by Danny Oppenheimer | 40
An Horatian Notion by Thomas Lux | 45
Places Unexpected by Evan Nesterak | 49
Journey to Robbers Cave: Part 3 | 58
Vaccinating in Taliban Country by Sherine Guirguis and Michael Coleman | 62
CHAPTER 4
Discoveries
Unraveling the Myth of Universal Emotions by Lisa Feldman Barrett | 71
Journey to Robbers Cave: Part 4 | 80
Finding Lucy in the Mind of Lennon by Tim Kasser | 83
Sound Becomes Immortal by Ainissa Ramirez | 88
When It All Became Apparent by Ariel Kalil, Susan E. Mayer, and Michelle Park Michelini | 94
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Behavioral Science in the Backcountry by Greg Rosalsky | 99
Journey to Robbers Cave: Part 5 | 112
A Cognitive Labor of Love by Allison Daminger | 116
The Brain—Is Wider than the Sky by Emily Dickinson | 119
Psychologists Go to War by John Greenwood | 123
Journey to Robbers Cave: Part 6 | 128
Principles for the Application of Human Intelligence by Jason Collins | 130
Goop Happens by Traci Mann | 134
To Nudge, or Not to Nudge | 137
Social Science, Ideology, Culture, & History by Barry Schwartz | 141
Journey to Robbers Cave: Part 7 | 148
Is Everything BS? by Rory Sutherland | 152
Behavioral Science in a Future, Far, Far Away by Nathaniel Barr and Kelly Peters | 158
Poets to Come by Walt Whitman | 161
Introduction | 5

CHAPTER 1
Visions
Where We Begin
Look again at that dot.
That’s here. That’s home. That’s us.
On it everyone you love,
everyone you know,
everyone you ever heard of,
every human being who ever was,
lived out their lives.
The aggregate of our joy and suffering,
thousands of confident religions,
ideologies, and economic doctrines,
every hunter and forager,
every hero and coward,
every creator and destroyer of civilization,
every king and peasant,
every young couple in love,
every mother and father,
hopeful child,
inventor and explorer,
every teacher of morals,
every corrupt politician,
every “superstar,”
every “supreme leader,”
every saint and sinner
in the history of our species
lived there—on a mote of dust
suspended in a sunbeam.
* * *
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