Decision-Making
The Primal Urge: Eating, Sleeping, and Playing Without Thinking
The Homeostatic and Allostatic Foundations The primal urges of eating, sleeping, and playing are not optional…
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My Traits Lab Blog
Helpful articles about self-awareness, relationships, work style, emotional patterns, communication, and personal growth.
Decision-Making
How to Train Your Primal Desires for Better Long-Term Outcomes
Neuroplasticity and the Malleability of Desire The dominant misconception about primal desires is that they a…
Decision-Making
Taming Your Inner Animal for Better Everyday Decision-Making
The Hot-Cold Empathy Gap and the Failure of Prediction One of the most reliable findings in behavioral econom…
Decision-Making
The Absolute Necessity of Training Your Primal Brain
Evolutionary Mismatch and the Modern Crisis The primal brain is not a relic; it is the active, operating syst…
Decision-Making
A Practical Guide to Disciplining Your Inner Dog Brain
Step 1: Install an Interoceptive Dashboard The first step in disciplining the inner dog brain is to develop r…
Decision-Making
Why Emotions Are "Dumb" and How to Handle Them Logically
The Cognitive Architecture of Emotional Processing Describing emotions as "dumb" is not a value judgment; it…
Decision-Making
The Inherent Lack of Logic in Raw Human Feelings
Raw human feelings operate according to their own internal logic that has nothing to do with rationality or l…
Decision-Making
Separating Your Raw Emotion from Your Rational Intellect
The ability to separate raw emotion from rational intellect is one of the most important skills in effective…
Decision-Making
Why Feelings Make Terrible Strategic Planners and Decision Makers
Feelings evolved to solve immediate problems, not to create long-term strategies. This fundamental mismatch i…
Decision-Making
Overcoming the Natural Short-Sightedness of Unchecked Emotion
Unchecked emotion is inherently short-sighted because it evolved to solve problems that could be addressed th…
Decision-Making
How Emotions Fail to Consider Multiple Factors When Acting
Emotions evolved to focus attention narrowly on the most salient aspect of a situation. This narrow focus was…
Decision-Making
Why Human Emotions Are Hardwired to Overreact to Modern Stimuli
Human emotions evolved in an environment where threats were physical, immediate, and often life-threatening.…