Psychology
topic on 4 shows · 15 statements across 15 episodes
We Live to Build 
the Knowledge Project 
Lenny's Podcast 
the a16z Podcast
15 statements about Psychology, every show
Changing human psychology solves problems much cheaper than changing underlying technology
“Do not define an objective which is designed to serve human beings without considering psychological factors, because you might be able to solve your problem very, very cheaply and efficiently by changing the psychology, not by changing the technology.”
Sutherland: Psychology is complexity theory where opposites can both work
“Psychology is a branch of complexity theory. Okay, and there are lots of things in it which are non-linear butterfly effects, small things that have a huge effect, and there are also lots of things which are, if you like, yin and yang. In other words, what I s…”
Weisbrot: Colleges should require all students to study psychology
“I feel like everyone should have One or two years of psychology and college, whether you want to be a doctor or a lawyer or a mechanic, I think everybody should be forced to learn a year or two of psychology instead of we take these elective classes that are l…”
Shankar: Framing arguments within an opponent's moral values improves persuasion
“What we find is that grounding our arguments in moral terms that affirm rather than threaten the moral views of those we disagree with is far more effective at helping them
Change their viewpoints.”
Valiante: A sense of humor is a primary indicator of psychological health
“One of the things we know in psychology is sense of humor is one of the greatest tells of psychological health and well-being. One of the keys to psychological health is to be able to laugh at things that are funny.”
Mullainathan: Academic psychology will inevitably pivot toward applied self-help
“I think we're going to see a revolution both in behavioral science as a research discipline. So for example, here's a telltale sign. Psychologists don't work on self-help. That doesn't make any sense. There's a whole ocean of people who in good faith want to i…”
Gustafson: Psychology background gives client-facing professionals an edge
“If you are someone that is in A sales role, a client facing role, a professional services role, and a doctor, a therapist, and on and on and on. You need to interact with people and the best way to interact with people and not go crazy yourself is to understan…”
Leading Users During Product Interviews Introduces Harmful Researcher Bias
“And it's unfortunate because you're kind of leading them and in a way they want to be led. But you don't want to lead them because then you're introducing your own bias. Which is a huge problem in psychology, you know, inserting your own bias.”
Humans distinguish correct from incorrect intuitions at only a 50-50 rate
“Because one of the things I learned in psychology is that, you know, we have intuitions all the time, and we are actually horrible, horrible, horrible at being able to tell the correct intuitions from the wrong intuitions. We're about fifty-fifty, and that's a…”
Kahneman: Some evidence cited in 'Thinking, Fast and Slow' has been discredited
“There's been a replication crisis in psychology. And some of the stuff that I really believed in when I wrote Thinking Fast and Slow, some of that evidence has been discredited.”
Haidt: The definition of trauma has expanded to mean mere unpleasantness
“Ideas of trauma are important in psychology and psychiatry, but now trauma has expanded to mean just unpleasant experience.”
Wolfe: Psychology drives 90% of Lux Capital's successes and 99% of problems
“All that's important, but what really matters is understanding human nature and psychology, and so, 90% of our successes and 99% of our problems in our companies are us playing armchair psychologist and trying to diagnose, why is this team not effective?”
Mokyr: Almost All Economics Breakthroughs in Last 25 Years Came From Outside Fields
“The last, I think, 20, 25 years, almost all of the major breakthroughs have occurred by people coming in with ideas from psychology or from mathematics. And basically introducing these into economics.”
Infrastructure spending is more acceptable than psychological solutions
“Because it's always much more acceptable To spend money on infrastructure than it is to spend money on psychology.”
Domingos: Humans Are Systematically Overconfident in Evolutionary and Cultural Knowledge
“Conversely, a lot of the knowledge that we have from evolution and from experience and from culture, we often tend to think of it as much more certain than it really is. We have this great tendency that's been well studied by psychologists to be overconfident …”