Persuasion Articles of the Week

Photo "CL Society 218: Crossing arms" by Francisco Osorio, Flickr, CC-By-2.0
Photo “CL Society 218: Crossing arms” by Francisco Osorio, Flickr, CC-By-2.0

#emotionalintelligence #bodylanguage #nudge

Emotional Intelligence Needs a Rewrite

This article uses neuroscience to debunk the reptilian/mammalian/human “3-brain” concept, and argues that our behavior is far larger than a single emotion might indicate. Instead, our whole brain is using previous experiences to predict the next moments. Sounds a lot like Sam Harris’ book Free Will — but I’m not ready to give up on the three-brain analogy, which I think is still useful for understanding body language even if it’s not a perfect description of how we work.

Governments are trying to nudge us into better behavior. Is it working?

People rarely explore options away from the default. The book Nudge explains how we can use this to improve society without reducing choice. This article highlights where this is happening and the (low) costs involved.