Openness to Experience and Intellect Differentially Predict Creative Achievement in the Arts and Sciences Scott Barry Kaufman, Lena C. Quilty, Rachael G. Grazioplene, Jacob B. Hirsh, Jeremy R. Gray, Jordan B. Peterson, and Colin G. DeYoung The Big Five personality dimension Openness/Intellect is the trait most closely associated with creativity and creative achievement. Little is known, […]
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Maslow on the strongest people in our society
I think this passage, from an unpublished speech Maslow gave to the Saga Foundation in 1969, is especially relevant today: “The strongest people in our society are maybe the softest– in the sense of being altruistic and idealistic… Part of the American difficulty with affection, love, and sentiment is mixed up with our never-ceasing effort […]
Understanding Complex Material: Don’t Give Up Too Soon!
Often when I’m reading something very complex, I don’t understand it right away. So I sleep. The next day, I may still be overwhelmed. But I keep reading it again. And again. Little by little, as the days go by, things start to get chunked in my head. My working memory burden is alleviated by […]
Abraham Maslow on being an introverted leader
I just finished reading over 1000 pages of Abraham Maslow’s personal journal. This project has taken up a good part of the last 6 months of my life. But I have found it immensely satisfying and rewarding to peer into the deepest recesses of the mind of one of my intellectual heros. I have a lot […]
4 Ways to Hack Your Inner Creativity
From Daniel Pink‘s newsletter today (thanks Dan!): 4 WAYS TO HACK YOUR INNER CREATIVITY What do Thomas Edison, Frida Kahlo, and Michael Jackson have in common? No, they haven’t all recently launched a podcast. Instead, they grace the pages of a terrific new book that tries to reverse-engineer that elusive quality/trait/skill known as “creativity.” In Wired […]
How I Write
A lot of people ask how I write. I thought I’d offer a little confession in case it helps. I often start with a hazy intuition of what I hope to accomplish by an article, but I ultimately let the process of writing guide me. I find that my best pieces are those in which […]
How to Be an Optimal Human
What does it take to be an optimal human being?* Throughout history there has been much speculation. For Aristotle, the highest human good was eudaimonia. For Carl Rogers, it was the “fully functioning person“. For Abraham Maslow, it was “self-actualization“. For Erik Erickson, it was wisdom and integrity. For Erich Fromm, it was about having a “being” orientation (in which you value personal growth […]
Being an individual differences researcher is a thankless job
Being an individual differences researcher is a thankless job. We get slammed from our colleagues (reviewers), we get slammed from the public (no one wants to hear that individual differences exist). We’re overworked (finding the right structural equation model takes eons), underpaid(compared to authors who write about how anyone can be anything, anytime), underappreciated (it’s nearly impossible to get a […]
The Differences Between Happiness and Meaning in Life
“Humans may resemble many other creatures in their striving for happiness, but the quest for meaning is a key part of what makes us human, and uniquely so.” — Roy Baumeister et al. (2013) The pursuit of happiness and meaning are two of our most central motivations in life. A wealth of research in positive […]
Flow: Instead of Losing Yourself, You are Being Yourself
This has been a major conundrum for me: Why is the flow state of consciousness so often described as “losing yourself” to an activity, when the default mode brain network is highly active while people are in the flow state? The default mode network plays an important role in self-related cognition and personal goal processing. The […]
Do Changes in Emotional Functioning Impact Cognitive Functioning?
It’s well known that people differ from one another in their cognitive functioning. Some people consistently have a better memory, learn faster, reason more accurately, and can understand things more quickly than others. Our understanding of fluctuations in cognitive functioning within a person, over time, are much less well understood. In a new paper, rising superstar Sophie […]
Beyond Born versus Made: A New Look at Expertise
Beyond Born versus Made: A New Look at Expertise David Z. Hambrick,, Brooke N. Macnamarax, Guillermo Campitelli, Fredrik Ullén and Miriam A. Mosing Why are some people so much more successful than other people in music, sports, games, business, and other complex domains? This question is the subject of one of psychology’s oldest debates. Over 20 […]