Over the past few days I happen to have posted about two aspects of human nature that most people don’t pay enough attention to:
- Loss aversion: people really, really hate to lose something they already have and will forego even favorable risks to avoid it.
- Regression to the mean: an especially strong performance is likely to be followed by a weaker performance and vice versa.
I propose we construct a top ten list of similar things. Not personal pet theories, but aspects of human nature that are (a) widely accepted and relatively noncontroversial among professionals, and (b) underappreciated by most of us. They can come from anywhere: economics, psychology, sociology, politics, anthropology, whatever.
(“Underappreciated” is important! You might believe, for example, that people who fall in love do stupid things. And maybe so. But this is not exactly something that’s failed to attract sufficient attention in popular culture.)
I encourage other bloggers to join in. What are your favorite aspects of human nature that get short shrift in popular discourse even though they’re pretty strongly supported in the academic literature? It’s a weekend and this should be a fun exercise. Let’s hear it.
