Imagine chewing on some freshly broken glass, then chasing it with a pint of nail polish remover, while the Chipmunks play at 11 in the background: that’s the psychic equivalent of reading Elf on the Shelf: A Christmas Tradition, whose introduction manages to be both ominous and shrill.
South Carolina, a state that thoughtfully welcomes its 19 known hate groups by flying a Confederate flag over the statehouse, is facing a real quandary today. When a white man walks into a black church—a church that was targeted, surveilled and burned down 200 years ago in a period when black churches were prohibited…
In March of this year, after a lot of discussion with my partner Charlie, I did something I’d been afraid to do for a long time: I wrote, and submitted for publication, an essay about our year-and-a-half (so far) of attempting to conceive a child. The essay, which was published on BuzzFeed LGBT, prompted not only a…
According to a new study published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, if you distract yourself for a few minutes before a big decision, you'll make a better one.
You know how there are those people who just know what they want? And then they take it? And then they're happy with their choices!?!!?!??? Yeah, those people are like aliens to me. I'm forever in this weird space of simultaneously wanting all of the stuff and wanting none of the stuff. And then people are like, "Just…
A new study of unmarried men living (in sin, hellfire, brimstone, blah!) with female partners has found that most of them would prefer to be consulted about an impending abortion, and, perhaps encouragingly, that this insistence to be included in a pregnancy-terminating decision had less to do with entrenched…
From all the times that you went shopping with your mom, got in a huge fight, and came back with a purple striped romper, you may be aware that stress can do a number on your decision-making skills. Now scientists have some ideas about exactly how it screws up your ability to choose.
Usually, the Times's "At Home With" columns piss me off, with their descriptions of palatial apartments and twee owners. But the story of Sheena Iyengar, a blind choice expert who furnishes her home by consensus, is downright fascinating.
Elizabeth Gilbert can often come off as self-absorbed and obnoxious, but in this interview the Eat, Pray, Love author actually offers some useful and comforting advice on making decisions.
There has been a legislative trend sweeping through states which would offer parents whose children are stillborn the option of a quasi-birth certificate along with the standard death certificate. It seems likely to become the law in New York fairly soon, which would make it the 24th state to offer grieving parents…
The next time someone tells you to "go with your gut," they're really giving you good advice. In today's New York Times, There's an interview with Gerd Gigerenzer (left), a German social psychologist whose ideas were featured in Malcolm Gladwell's best-seller, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. Gigerenzer…
