A New Look at Self-Deception
As a behavioral scientist, I have long been interested in self-deception. But I’ve never thought about it this way before, as pictured in a tremendous drawing by Jonathan Bartlett:

“With luck, Ted Kennedy will be dead soon.” She uttered these words two minutes after expressing hope that the nation would rally behind Obama. A lifelong Republican, she had voted for McCain. I expect she harbored concerned about Obama’s terrorist pals and his anti-American pastor. But with Obama now newly elected as president, she was…
In a recent post, I reproduce the figure showing the “stickiness” of odometer readings, when it comes to the price of used cars. Much better to sell your car at 49,999 miles rather than 50,001 miles. But here’s another sticky threshold, that was reported on at 538.com. It shows that when airplane flights leave 40…
I don’t read much war history. I’m fascinated by what causes humans to end up in a state of war, but not so interested in the bloody details of how they fight their battles. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed The Day of Battle, a book by Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson. The book covers the war…
You might be interested in some coverage my research team got in Qatar, for our study on oncology decision making. (Link) Maybe one of you can translate it for me?
I recently spoke with Duke University’s The Chronicle about gender pay disparity in research medicine.
Click here to see the Q&A…
I have done a fair amount of research exploring people’s ability to adapt to a wide range of illnesses and disabilities, too emotionally recover from these difficult circumstances more than the could have imagined. But chronic pain is one of those health conditions that many people find very difficult to adapt to emotionally. One reason…