Random links

Bias and ignorance in demographic perception
"But if we zoom out ... instead of focusing only on a limited sample of hot-button topics within the U.S., a systematic pattern is glaringly obvious: small values are overestimated and large values are underestimated, regardless of topic."
Culture and National Well-Being: Should Societies Emphasize Freedom or Constraint?
"Contrary to proponents who tout the benefits of one over the other, we demonstrate across 32 nations that both freedom and constraint exhibit a curvilinear relationship with many indicators of societal well-being. Relative to moderate nations, very permissive and very constrained nations exhibit worse psychosocial outcomes ... worse health outcomes ... and poorer economic and political outcomes"
To please your friends, tell them what they already know
"both speakers and listeners expect novel stories to be bigger crowd pleasers, but ... listeners end up enjoying familiar stories more." This seems like a very dangerous strategy to follow in certain "social justice" oriented circles these days.