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Wooden mannequin propped up with head hung low.

How a Scientific Consensus Collapsed

The curious case of social psychology.
by Jacob Mikanowski via The Chronicle of Higher Education on February 20, 2025
A man wearing a COVID mask giving a passionate speech

Philadelphia's Fight Against Gun Violence, Poverty, and Crime

For decades, Philadelphia has struggled with poverty and gun violence. Social uplift organizations of the past have demonstrated that racial equity is the key.
by Menika Dirkson via Black Perspectives on August 31, 2023
An eight photo collage of pictures showing the proper way for women to smile

Just Wear Your Smile

Few who encounter Positive Psychology via self-help books and therapy know that its gender politics valorize the nuclear family and heterosexual monogamy.
by Micki McElya via Boston Review on September 26, 2022
Photo of Philip Rieff at microphone waiting to speak

The Importance of Repression

Philip Rieff predicted that therapy culture would end in barbarism.
by Park MacDougald via UnHerd on September 29, 2021

The Rise of the Bystander as a Complicit Historical Actor

How the presumption of bystanders’ responsibility crystallized into the predominant opinion.
by Dennis Klein via Psyche on November 11, 2020
Magnifying glass on top of the book "The Mask of Sanity" by Hervey Cleckley.

The Man Who Invented the “Psychopath”

Hervey Cleckley wanted to treat the most overlooked psychiatric patients. Instead his work was used to demonize them.
by Camille Bromley via The New Republic on November 7, 2024
John B. Calhoun and his rats from a 1970 photograph.
partner

Rats Are as Bad as Human Beings in Some Ways

In which John B. Calhoun begins to study the lifestyles of rodents, and the public listens.
by Lee Alan Dugatkin via HNN on October 9, 2024
Civil Defense warning.

The Occasion Instant, 1961

What can be learned from how people responded to false alarms about nuclear war in the late 1950s?
by Alex Wellerstein via Doomsday Machines on September 11, 2024
A man stands before four doorways with cryptic letters on them.

Sorting the Self

The self has never been more securely an object of classification than it is today.
by Christopher Yates via The Hedgehog Review on March 3, 2024
John Von Neumann and computer charts.

The World John von Neumann Built

Game theory, computers, the atom bomb—these are just a few of things von Neumann played a role in developing, changing the 20th century for better and worse.
by David Nirenberg via The Nation on November 28, 2022
Collage image of the book "Public Opinion," featuring a man reading a newspaper.

"Public Opinion" at 100

Walter Lippmann’s seminal work identified a fundamental problem for modern democratic society that remains as pressing—and intractable—as ever.
by André Forget via The Bulwark on September 16, 2022
Yoko Ono looking pensive.

Yoko Ono’s Art of Defiance

Before she met John Lennon, she was a significant figure in avant-garde circles and had created masterpieces. Did celebrity deprive her of her due as an artist?
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on June 8, 2022
Protester in a march, holding a sign that reads "Bank on the future."

The Way We Talk About Climate Change Is Wrong

The language of “sacrifice” reveals we’re stuck in a colonial mindset.
by Priya Satia via Foreign Policy on March 11, 2022
Illustration of a mid-life crisis by Ruth Basagoitia. A man looking into the mirror imagining a cooler version of himself.

Climacteric!

Taking seriously the midlife crisis.
by Trevor Quirk via The Hedgehog Review on March 1, 2022

How Hobbies Infiltrated American Life

America has a love affair with “productive leisure.”
by Julie Beck via The Atlantic on January 4, 2022

The South’s Resistance to Vaccination Is Not As Incomprehensible As It Seems

The psychological forces driving “red COVID” have deep historical roots.
by Angie Maxwell, Rebecca Onion via Slate on October 1, 2021

The Radical History of Corporate Sensitivity Training

The modern-day human-resources practice is rooted in avant-garde philosophy.
by Beth Blum via The New Yorker on September 24, 2020

The History of Loneliness

Until a century or so ago, almost no one lived alone; now many endure shutdowns and lockdowns on their own. How did modern life get so lonely?
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on March 30, 2020

Why are Pop Songs Getting Sadder Than They Used to Be?

The most popular songs today are sadder than they were 50 years ago: can cultural evolution explain this negative turn?
by Alberto Acerbi, Charlotte Brand via Aeon on February 4, 2020

Before It Conquered the World, Facebook Conquered Harvard

On Facebook's 15th anniversary, Harvard students and faculty reflect on being the first users of Earth's largest social network.
by Alexis C. Madrigal via The Atlantic on February 4, 2019

The Real Roots of American Rage

The untold story of how anger became the dominant emotion in our politics and personal lives—and what we can do about it.
by Charles Duhigg via The Atlantic on December 15, 2018

What War of the Worlds Did

The uncanny realism of Orson Welles’s radio play crystallised a fear of communication technology that haunts us today.
by Benjamin Naddaff-Hafrey via Aeon on November 26, 2018
Man wearing a red Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses rides a big yellow motorcycle.

How Feminists Invented the Male Midlife Crisis

Because most tales and treatises about this near-cliché of midlife crisis center on men, you might be misled to think they have nothing to do with women’s lives.
by Susanne Schmidt via Zócalo Public Square on June 1, 2018

On Prejudice

An 18th-century creole slaveholder invented the idea of 'racial prejudice’ to defend diversity among a slaveowning elite.
by Blake Smith via Aeon on March 5, 2018

Donald Trump and the 'Paranoid Style' in American (Intellectual) Politics

Revisiting Holfstadter's "paranoid style" in the era of Trump.
by Leo P. Ribuffo via The International Security Studies Forum on June 13, 2017
1996 Photograph of Robert B. Smith, 18, is escorted from jail to arraignment for the 1966 slayings of five people in Mesa, Arizona.

The Story of the First Copycat Mass Shooter

Robert Benjamin Smith inaugurated murder for the media age.
by Meagan Day via Timeline on November 7, 2016
Children reading a storybook with a teacher.

What We've Learned In the 50 Years Since One Report Introduced the Black-White Achievement Gap

A Harvard education professor explains how far we've come in answering some of the most important questions in education since the famous Coleman report.
by Heather C. Hill via Chalkbeat on July 13, 2016
Aerial view of identical-looking houses in suburbs

Welcome to Disturbia

Why midcentury Americans believed the suburbs were making them sick.
by Amanda Kolson Hurley via Curbed on May 25, 2016

The Myth of the War of the Worlds Panic

Orson Welles’ infamous 1938 radio program did not touch off nationwide hysteria. Why does the legend persist?
by Michael J. Socolow, Jefferson Pooley via Slate on October 28, 2013

Unpopular Mandate

Why do politicians reverse their positions?
by Ezra Klein via The New Yorker on June 25, 2012
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