Very cool review in NatureHumanBehaviour discussing the effects of pandemic-driven social isolation on the brain, behavior and health by Danilo Bzdok and Robin Dunbar nature.com/articles/s4156…

Since the early 1990s, pop song lyrics have become significantly more negative (ht Matthew Yglesias)

cambridge.org/core/journals/…

'We conclude that the proliferation of negative song lyrics may be explained partly by content bias ... negative lyrics do better in the charts'

Jason ✨Be Kind✨ Lemkin Happens on Twitter, for now. That’s the digital watering hole.

'When most people respond in a certain way, that response loses some of its power through repetition and predictability. Socially skilled people recognize this problem, and by finding a way to be just a little different, they communicate more effectively' amzn.to/3TKYHEC

38% of women and 60% of men say they have attempted to lure another person's partner into a casual sexual encounter

87% of men and 94% of women say that someone else attempted to entice them out of an existing relationship for a brief sexual encounter labs.la.utexas.edu/buss/files/201…

'For our group to deal effectively with a threat or opportunity, we must all perceive it in the same way, and thus, we have evolved to seek emotional consensus...This need to share emotional experience sits at the root of nearly all exaggeration.' amzn.to/3EXyNJw

“Artists and scientists experiment with styles and topics early in their careers but, when success arrives, they begin repeating whatever brought them success…once they find an approach that brings them recognition, they often stick to it.” psyche.co/ideas/are-succ…

“Long term goals tend to generate anxiety...Always break tasks into smaller bites. Each day or week you must have microgoals...what you are after is a series of practical results and accomplishments, not a list of unrealized dreams and aborted projects.” robkhenderson.substack.com/p/highlights-f…

'people see themselves as worse off than their peers in their emotional lives: They overestimate the prevalence of their peers’ positive emotions and they underestimate the prevalence of their peers’ negative emotions' journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…

'the world is stochastic...Even if you know for sure that a choice will work out for you say, 80% of the time, that means, by definition, that the world is going to hand you a bad outcome 20% of the time.' amzn.to/3eRL5Z6

Interesting ppl to follow for #followfriday

Laith Al-Shawaf ليث الشواف
Brett Andersen
Eric Neumann
Musa al-Gharbi
Coltan Scrivner
Hannah K. Bradshaw
Randy Nesse
Professor Simone Schnall
Rob
Jaimie Arona Krems
Brent W. Roberts
Dr. Steve Rathje
Khandis Blake, Ph.D.
William Costello
Human Peacocking
Timothy Bates

Ancient Confucian disciple Xunzi: Rituals must accord with human nature if they are to promote harmony. An arbitrary set of social rituals would fail.

“we tend to overestimate other people’s abilities—after all, they’re trying hard to make it look as if they knew what they were doing—and we tend to underestimate our own.” We see their smooth exterior and compare it to our internal worries. robkhenderson.substack.com/p/highlights-f…

'Girls are 14 percentage points more likely than boys to be 'school ready' at age five...a much bigger gap than the one between rich and poor children, or black and white children, or between those who attend pre-school and those who do not.' spectator.co.uk/article/why-bo…

'upper-body strength, a trait that is related to hunting success in Hadza men, does have beneficial reproductive consequences...In short, female choice, male provisioning, social monogamy, and body dimorphism are probably all linked.' amzn.to/3ERE9Gc

Anxiety is the most common #mentalhealth disorder diagnosed in men, is predictive of later psychiatric disorders if untreated and may be associated with increased suicide risk-so why are we not taking men’s anxiety seriously? Check out our commentary in Springer Nature