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A moral emotion wants something to happen. What if the things it wants to happen are in a zero-sum relationship with each other? More of this means less of that and both this and that are Moral Goods. But you can’t have the optimal amount of both. You gotta choose! (And keep choosing, because time doesn't stop and stuff keeps happening).
...you insist on seeing things as binaries rather than continua. Either this or that, e.g., save the environment or help business; serve the rich or help the poor.
...feminism helped some women advance to positions supervising men, which in the bad ol' days was rarely tolerated, whether at fast food restaurants or accounting firms.
Moderates are often considered weak versions of the Real Thing - people who lack strong convictions, who don't want to rock the boat.
...they’re better at constructing elaborate ideologies around their dumb ideas and more likely to achieve positions of power, allowing them to impose these dumb ideas on others. See, for instance...
Unfortunately, in this era of media fragmentation we see the exact opposite with groups collecting themselves into silos while simultaneously insulting anyone who doesn’t hew to their exact world-view. A Chemist in Langley Posted on April 29, 2017
We should plan to have mini-mastery experiences every day: something a bit challenging but still doable to gets us closer to our goal. Doesn't mean to avoid the hard stuff, but it's nice to sprinkle the hard with the pretty easy to keep us motivated.
The possibility of failure beckons and is transformed into something exhilarating.
Beliefs serve decision-making under conditions of uncertainty. Without uncertainty, we just act. I don't "believe" the ground will stop my foot when I walk....That's just the neural prediction and reward-seeking machinery running smoothly. It's when the machinery gets stuck that the brain shifts into belief mode to help break the logjam.
Jumping the groove from dopamine to self-efficacy: here we go!
If these additional heuristics were put into words, they may sound like "when in doubt, go with tough love" or "when in doubt, provide relief". Note how uncertainty ("when in doubt") calls for heuristic assistance. Help! I need a heuristic! Thinking hard is aversive!
In other words, substantial majorities of all political groups feel they've achieved the American Dream or are at least getting there. Yet we hear all the time that "the American dream is dead". Take this Chicago Tribune commentary, "The American Dream is dead, and voters are angry". To quote...
The “world does not end, the blue bird does not return, love does not reveal itself in all of its profound tenderness and charity, and death and mourning and crying and pain do not disappear.” Yuri Slezkine.
Want to convince someone the situation is urgent and immediate action is imperative? Well, you're not going to get very far by laying it on with a sledgehammer. This approach usually backfires by triggering resistance and motivating counterarguments.
I don't equate prosperity with being rich, or even being above middle-class. I think of prosperity as owning a nice home in a nice neighborhood, with health insurance and a degree of financial security. Don't need a big house, don't need fancy.
When we're talking to ourselves (silently or aloud), we're engaging in a goal-directed behavior, such as trying to strengthen our resolve (yes, I can!) or remember something (broccoli). We’re still riding on a wave of feeling, because goals can't gain traction without emotion.
...many generations of Americans wanted to do better than their parents - especially when their parents struggled. For much of American history, our parents struggled. It's only been the last 50 or so years that most of us could take a breather. Is doing better than one's parents still the be all/end all of the American Dream? Should it be?
High crime clearance rates are associated with lower crime rates. Translation: more crimes solved, fewer crimes. While the causal pathways are complicated, deterrence appears to play a starring role. Basically, humans are less likely to transgress against the rules if they think they’ll be caught...
Looking at Philadelphia, it appears that homicides vary with clearance rates after a lag time. For instance, the Philadelphia Homicide Unit reported a 70% clearance rate in 2012 and the following year homicides went down 26%...
One would think that per capita income would have a strong positive link to crime, other variables held constant. But when population was also included in in the data analysis, income lost its statistical significance, while population retained significance.