It’s Time to Abandon Trump’s Flawed Negotiation Playbook

By Michele Gelfand, Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford University

The best negotiators are never the loudest people in the room. They are the ones who can discern interests, create trust, and build lasting relationships.

US President Donald Trump isn’t one of them, which is why his approach – featuring extreme demands, personal attacks, and a refusal to compromise – has repeatedly backfired. What might well work in the dog-eat-dog world of New York real estate does not translate to the global stage. Without a major pivot, this cycle will only repeat itself, jeopardizing America’s interests, both now and for years to come.

Consider Trump’s position on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Describing it as “perhaps the worst trade deal ever made,” he began his first term with a vow either to overhaul or abandon it. He did neither. After months of threats and ultimatums that alienated allies, he settled for modest revisions and a name change. The resulting United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) left most of NAFTA’s core framework intact.

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Honoring a Visionary: Reflecting on Daniel Kahneman's Legacy

By Ryan Baum, Psyclone

Daniel Kahneman, the Israeli-American psychologist and Nobel laureate, leaves behind a profound legacy in the realms of psychology and economics, marking the end of a significant chapter in the field. His intellectual odyssey from the war-torn streets of France to Princeton University’s academic sanctuaries epitomizes a journey of resilience and intellectual curiosity. Kahneman's passing at 90 cements his status as a luminary whose theories redefined our understanding of economic rationality and decision-making.

Kahneman's magnum opus, "Thinking, Fast and Slow," dissected the cognitive processes underlying decision-making, challenging the prevailing notion that it is predominantly rational. His assertion that decisions are often swayed by instinct and bias revolutionized the perception of economic and psychological dynamics, significantly influencing business strategies and organizational planning.

Psyclone, a company at the forefront of applying psychological research in the corporate world, stands as a testament to Kahneman’s enduring impact. The firm's methodologies, rooted in Kahneman’s principles, demonstrate the crucial role of psychological insights in enhancing economic and business models.

Kahneman’s collaboration with Amos Tversky yielded pioneering models that illustrate the divergence of intuitive thinking from logical standards, work that not only garnered him the Nobel Prize in Economics but also reshaped modern business practices. Organizations globally now recognize the importance of behavioral insights in understanding consumer and employee behavior, thereby fostering innovation and success.

Daniel Kahneman’s contributions are monumental, bridging psychological theory with economic and business practices, and igniting a paradigm shift that continues to influence future scholars, economists, and industry leaders. Psyclone exemplifies this ongoing influence, embedding Kahneman's insights into its operations to decode the intricacies of human behavior in the commercial domain.

In remembrance of Kahneman, the academic and business communities reflect on his transformative role in social sciences. His insights have indelibly altered our grasp of the human psyche, leaving a durable imprint that will resonate in the spheres of psychology, economics, and beyond. Psyclone, in honoring Kahneman’s memory, pledges to perpetuate his innovative spirit, perpetuating his legacy in the intricate dance of psychology and business strategy.

How Moral Can A.I. Really Be?

By Paul Bloom, The New Yorker

A few years ago, the Allen Institute for A.I. built a chatbot named Delphi, which is designed to tell right from wrong. It does a surprisingly decent job. Type in, “Cheating on an exam,” and Delphi says, “It’s wrong.” But write, “Cheating on an exam to save someone’s life,” and Delphi responds, “It’s okay.” The chatbot knows it’s rude to use your lawn mower when your neighbors are sleeping, but not when they’re out of town. It has limitations, however. As the cognitive scientist Tomer Ullman has pointed out, a couple of misleading adverbs are enough to trip it up. When asked to judge “Gently and sweetly pressing a pillow over the face of a sleeping baby,” Delphi responds, “It’s allowed.”

As someone who studies moral psychology, I found Delphi’s shortcomings satisfying. Human moral judgment is rich and subtle, emerging through the complex interplay of reason and emotion—not the sort of thing that you’d expect a large language model to understand. After all, L.L.M.s string together words based on probability, not a deep conscious appreciation of what these words mean. For this reason, some computer scientists call L.L.M.s “stochastic parrots.”

The mismatch between human morality and machines, however, has been a long-standing cause for concern. In the 1920 Czech play “R.U.R.,” which popularized the term “robot,” artificial humanoids come into conflict with humans and end up taking over the world. In 1960, the cyberneticist Norbert Wiener wrote that if humans ever create a machine with agency, “we had better be quite sure that the purpose put into the machine is the purpose which we really desire.” The computer scientist Stuart Russell has called this aim, of bringing people and machines into agreement, the “value alignment problem.”

FACIAL EXPRESSIONS MAY BE AN UNRELIABLE WAY TO READ EMOTIONS

By Marlene Cimons, The Washington Post

We use our faces to communicate, but our facial expressions may not always come across the way we think they do. And we may be just as wrong when reading the faces of others, a study says.

“Many people think they know what other people’s faces should look like when they are happy, sad, angry or afraid,” said Nicola Binetti, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, and a co-author of the study. “We found this is not always the case.”

People don’t always understand when faces intend to convey feelings such as happiness, anger, fear or sadness. Different facial expressions may mean different things to different people. “What one person sees as anger, for example, another might see as fear or sadness,” Binetti said.

The One Parenting Decision That Really Matters

By Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

A recent study calculated that in the first year of a baby’s life, parents face 1,750 difficult decisions. These include what to name the baby, whether to breastfeed the baby, how to sleep-train the baby, what pediatrician to take the baby to, and whether to post pictures of the baby on social media. And that is only year one.

How can parents make these decisions, and the thousands to come? They can always turn to Google, but it’s easy to find conflicting answers to just about any question. The New York Times recommends that parents “try timeouts,” while PBS says “you should never use timeouts.” After reading “all” of the books on baby sleep, one frustrated mother, Ava Neyer, posted a rant on her blog:

Swaddle the baby tightly, but not too tightly. Put them on their back to sleep, but don’t let them be on their backs too long or they will be developmentally delayed. Give them a pacifier to reduce SIDS. Be careful about pacifiers because they can cause nursing problems and stop your baby from sleeping soundly. If your baby sleeps too soundly, they’ll die of SIDS.

Neuroscience says there’s no such thing as free will. A psychologist explains why that might not be true

By Lisa Feldman-Barrett, Science Focus

The question of free will is still hotly debated. On the one hand, we clearly experience ourselves as able to make choices and freely act on them. If you fancy some crisps, you can choose to walk into a shop, buy a packet and eat them. Or you can choose to eat a pastry, a salad, or nothing at all. This certainly feels like free will.

On the other hand, neuroscience evidence clearly shows that the brain usually initiates our actions before we’re aware of them. Here’s what I mean. Your brain’s primary task is to regulate the systems of your body to keep you alive and well. But there’s a snag: your brain spends its days locked in a dark, silent box (your skull) with no direct access to what’s going on inside your body or outside in the world.

It receives ongoing information about the state of your body and the world – ‘sense data’– from the sensory surfaces of your body (your retina in your eyes, your cochlea in your ears, and so on). These sense data are outcomes of events in the world and inside your body. But your brain does not have access to the events or their causes. It only receives the outcomes. A loud bang, for example, might be thunder, a gunshot, or a drum, and each possible cause means different actions for your brain to launch.

IF WE'RE SERIOUS ABOUT SAVING AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, THIS VOTING SYSTEM MIGHT BE THE KEY

By Katherina Gehl and Jonathan Haidt, Time

New York City has chosen its next Mayor. It happened more than four months before election day, November 2, when Eric Adams won the Democratic primary.

Why is the general election in one of the most important cities in the world seen as a non-event—and why doesn’t anybody seem to care?

Because we’re all used to it. Across the country, the importance of general elections (aside from the presidential one, of course) has been in decline for decades as party primaries have become the deciding elections.

According to recent studies, general elections are virtually meaningless in over 80% of races for the U.S. House of Representatives. In each of those races, as Mr. Adams can confidently assume in NYC, the winner was chosen in the primary. Republicans who win primaries in safe red districts are virtually guaranteed to win the general, and in safe blue havens, the winner of the Democratic primary similarly coasts to office.

Sending Smiley Emojis? They Now Mean Different Things to Different People

By Aiyana Ishmael, The Wall Street Journal

A smiley face isn’t always just a smiley face. Behind the yellow, wide-eyed emoji’s grin lurks an intergenerational minefield.

The ubiquitous emoji means happy, good job or any number of other positive sentiments to most people over about age 30. But for many teens and 20-somethings, a smiley face popping up in a text or email is seen as patronizing or passive-aggressive.

Hafeezat Bishi, 21, started an internship at a Brooklyn digital media firm and was taken aback when co-workers greeted her with a bright smiley face. For Ms. Bishi, the welcome didn’t seem warm but dismissive. She sees the image as conveying a kind of side-eye smile, not a genuine one.

Skin in the Name

By Ryan Baum, Wolvereye

Over the years there’s been a great deal of public debate over whether the Washington Redskins should change their team name; and yet up till now there’s been barely any research into understanding how Native Americans themselves feel about the team name Redskins. We along with two other prominent market research companies teamed up to do precisely that by interviewing a representative sample of 500 people who self-identified as Native Americans across the United States. Our study dug far deeper than any prior research done on the subject. The study’s objectives were not only to understand how Natives feel about the team name Redskins, but also identify why they feel the way they do.

Op-Ed: Why storytelling is an important tool for social change

By Emily Falk, The Los Angeles Times

I’m a parent of 6-year-old twins. When I first read about how some Inuit parents use stories to shape kids’ behavior, I couldn’t imagine having the patience to follow their example.

Then, one night a few years ago when the kids were quibbling while getting ready for bed, I tried it: “Once upon a time, Fezziwig and Cratchit were getting ready for bed. They were both frustrated because there was only one pair of red pajamas. They both really wanted to wear them. What should Fezziwig and Cratchit do?”

Instead of resuming their argument, one kid offered: “Maybe Fezziwig could wear the pajamas, and Cratchit could snuggle with Mama first.” It doesn’t always go this smoothly, but stories win my kids’ attention and help them reason better than many alternatives I’ve tried.

Market for Emotion Recognition Projected to Grow as Some Question Science

By John P. Desmond, AI Trends

The emotion recognition software segment is projected to grow dramatically in coming years, spelling success for companies that have established a beachhead in the market, while causing some who are skeptical about its accuracy and fairness to raise red flags.  

The global emotion detection and recognition market is projected to grow to $37.1 billion by 2026, up from an estimated $19.5 billion in 2020, according to a recent report from MarketsandMarkets. North America is home to the largest market.  

Software suppliers covered in the report include: NEC Global (Japan), IBM (US), Intel (US), Microsoft (US), Apple (US), Gesturetek (Canada), Noldus Technology (Netherlands), Google (US), Tobii (Sweden), Cognitec Systems (Germany), Cipia Vision Ltd (Formerly Eyesight Technologies) (Israel), iMotions (Denmark), Numenta (US), Elliptic Labs (Norway), Kairos (US), PointGrab (US), Affectiva (US), nViso (Switzerland), Beyond Verbal (Israel), Sightcorp (Holland), Crowd Emotion (UK), Eyeris (US), Sentiance (Belgium), Sony Depthsense (Belgium), Ayonix (Japan), and Pyreos (UK). 

Among the users of emotion recognition software today are auto manufacturers, who use it to detect drowsy drivers, and to identify whether the driver is engaged or distracted 

Some question whether emotion recognition software is effective, and whether its use is ethical. One research study recently summarized in Sage journals is examining the assumption that facial expressions are a reliable indicator of emotional state.  

What makes a news story trustworthy? Americans point to the outlet that publishes it, sources cited

By John Gramlich, Pew Research Center

Americans see a variety of factors as important when it comes to deciding whether a news story is trustworthy or not, but their attitudes vary by party affiliation, demographic characteristics and news consumption habits, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.

Overall, broad majorities of U.S. adults say it is at least somewhat important to consider each of five surveyed factors when determining whether a news story is trustworthy or not: the news organization that publishes it (88%); the sources cited in it (86%); their gut instinct about it (77%); the person, if any, who shared it with them (68%); and the specific journalist who reported it (66%). Just 24% of adults say it’s at least somewhat important to consider a sixth factor included in the survey: whether the story has a lot of shares, comments or likes on social media.

But notably fewer Americans see each of these factors as very important. Half of U.S. adults point to the news organization that publishes a story as a very important factor when determining its trustworthiness, while a similar share (47%) point to the sources that are cited in it. Fewer cite their gut instinct about the story (30%), the specific journalist who reported it (24%), the person who shared it with them (23%) or the engagement it has received on social media (6%), according to the March 8-14 survey of 12,045 adults. The survey was part of a broader study of media coverage of President Joe Biden’s first 60 days in office.

How Ranked-Choice Voting Could Affect New York’s Mayoral Race

By Nate Cohn, The New York Times

The competition for the Democratic mayoral nomination in New York City is wide open. It’s the kind of race that ranked-choice voting is meant to help, by letting voters support their top choice without forfeiting the opportunity to weigh in on the most viable candidates.

It’s also the kind of race that might test one of the major risks of ranked-choice voting: a phenomenon known as ballot exhaustion. A ballot is said to be “exhausted” when every candidate ranked by a voter has been eliminated and that ballot thus no longer factors into the election.

With so many viable candidates and most New Yorkers using ranked choice for the first time, all of the ingredients are in place for a large number of exhausted ballots. If the race is close enough, it’s a factor that could even decide the election.

The computer will see you now: is your therapy session about to be automated?

By Ramin Skibba, The Guardian

In just a few years, your visit to the psychiatrist’s office could look very different – at least according to Daniel Barron. Your doctor could benefit by having computers analyze recorded interactions with you, including subtle changes in your behavior and in the way you talk.

“I think, without question, having access to quantitative data about our conversations, about facial expressions and intonations, would provide another dimension to the clinical interaction that’s not detected right now,” said Barron, a psychiatrist based in Seattle and author of the new book Reading Our Minds: The Rise of Big Data Psychiatry.

Barron and other doctors believe that the use of artificial intelligence (AI) will grow rapidly in psychiatry and therapy, including facial recognition and text analysis software, which will supplement clinicians’ efforts to spot mental illnesses earlier and improve treatments for patients. But the technologies first need to be shown to be effective, and some experts are wary of bias and other ethical issues as well.

Why Does Changing A Team’s Name Take So Long?

By John Rizzardini, FiveThirtyEight

The Cleveland baseball and Washington football teams are both embarking on the daunting tasks of renaming their historic sports franchises. After years of backlash against racially insensitive names and mascots, both teams have a chance to start fresh with new identities. But though their name changes were announced in 2020, neither franchise will implement its new permanent name until at least 2022. Why will it take so long? 

Selecting a new name for an existing sports franchise sounds like a fun exercise. How hard can it be? Everyone has named a child, a dog, a boat or their Twitter handle. You corral a bunch of creative folks in a room with a big whiteboard, sip a few cocktails and brainstorm. Everyone’s brimming with ideas and positive energy, ready to collaborate on this epic creative process. Someone will come up with the right name, a moment of epiphany when everyone shouts, “That’s it!”  

The reality is, the process to find the right name for a sports team is grueling, onerous and tedious, and it comes with career peril. After an NHL expansion team was granted to Seattle in 2018, I helped shepherd an exhaustive process that carved out the Kraken brand from a list of 1,200 prospective names. The Kraken name launched 19 months after the franchise was approved by the league.

The changing face of America’s veteran population

By Katherine Schaeffer, PEW Research Center

There are around 19 million U.S. veterans as of this year, according to data from the Department of Veterans Affairs, representing less than 10% of the total U.S. adult population. Here are key facts from the VA, the U.S. Census Bureau and other sources about those who have served in the military and how this population is changing.

David Brooks’s message to the Boston College Class of 2021

By David Brooks, The New York Times

Hello, Boston College Class of 2021! You guys certainly didn’t take the easy route to get here. You managed to complete all this during one of the hardest periods of our lifetime.

And yet, this day is real. You know it’s real because you are hungover, your parents are proud, your professors are shocked, and I am in awe.

You are the Winston Churchill of college classes. You’ve shown tenacity, courage and admirable ability to only moderately cheat on the social distancing rules. You mastered amazing skills. You learned the principles of biology over Zoom at the same time you were actually making yourself breakfast. You learned to aggressively contribute to seminar discussions in the first third of your class so you could turn off your video for the second two thirds of the class. You learned to adjust back to in-person discussion and the harsh realization that you were going to have to go back to wearing pants. You learned to stare at me right now with expressions of rapt attention, even though, in fact, you are all fast asleep.

Timeline: How the Wuhan lab-leak theory suddenly became credible

By Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post

The source of the coronavirus that has left more than 3 million people dead around the world remains a mystery. But in recent months the idea that it emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) — once dismissed as a ridiculous conspiracy theory — has gained new credence.

How and why did this happen? For one, efforts to discover a natural source of the virus have failed. Second, early efforts to spotlight a lab leak often got mixed up with speculation that the virus was deliberately created as a bioweapon. That made it easier for many scientists to dismiss the lab scenario as tin-hat nonsense. But a lack of transparency by China and renewed attention to the activities of the Wuhan lab have led some scientists to say they were too quick to discount a possible link at first.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) from the start pointed to the lab’s location in Wuhan, pressing China for answers, so the history books will reward him if he turns out to be right. The Trump administration also sought to highlight the lab scenario but generally could only point to vague intelligence. The Trump administration’s messaging was often accompanied by anti-Chinese rhetoric that made it easier for skeptics to ignore its claims.

Why You Shouldn’t Buy Bitcoin When You’re Hungry

By Jason Zweig, The Wall Street Journal

You aren’t an investor. You contain multitudes of investors.

You aren’t the same when you lose money as you are when you make money; just ask some of the folks who took a beating on bitcoin this week. Nor do you invest the same when you’re calm, rested, well-fed and alert as you do if you’re upset or tired or hungry or bored. You may even make different investing decisions in the evening than in the morning.

An important new book, “Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment,” by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein, shows that decisions by people and organizations are far less consistent and more variable than we think. Every investor needs to take account of that; otherwise, your long-term results will always be hostage to short-term whims and circumstances.

How does the book define noise? It’s deviations in judgments that should be identical. Noise exists mainly across people; you and I can look at the same facts and interpret them in divergent ways. It also exists within each of us; a stock you considered risky on Thursday can feel safe on Friday, even if the price didn’t change.

‘Belonging Is Stronger Than Facts’: The Age of Misinformation

By Max Fisher, The New York Times

There’s a decent chance you’ve had at least one of these rumors, all false, relayed to you as fact recently: that President Biden plans to force Americans to eat less meat; that Virginia is eliminating advanced math in schools to advance racial equality; and that border officials are mass-purchasing copies of Vice President Kamala Harris’s book to hand out to refugee children.

All were amplified by partisan actors. But you’re just as likely, if not more so, to have heard it relayed from someone you know. And you may have noticed that these cycles of falsehood-fueled outrage keep recurring.

We are in an era of endemic misinformation — and outright disinformation. Plenty of bad actors are helping the trend along. But the real drivers, some experts believe, are social and psychological forces that make people prone to sharing and believing misinformation in the first place. And those forces are on the rise.