Behavioral Science Quotes

“Groups have powerful self-reinforcing mechanisms at work. These can lead to group polarization—a tendency for members of the group to end up in a more extreme position than they started in because they have heard the views repeated frequently.
At the extreme limit of group behavior is groupthink. This occurs when a group makes faulty decisions because group pressures lead to a deterioration of “mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment.” The original work was conducted with reference to the Vietnam War and the Bay of Pigs fiasco. However, it rears its head again and again, whether it is in connection with the Challenger space shuttle disaster or the CIA intelligence failure over the WMD of Saddam Hussein.

Groupthink tends to have eight symptoms:
1 . An illusion of invulnerability. This creates excessive optimism that encourages taking extreme risks. [...]
2. Collective rationalization. Members of the group discount warnings and do not reconsider their assumptions. [...]
3. Belief in inherent morality. Members believe in the rightness of their cause and therefore ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their decisions.
4. Stereotyped views of out-groups. Negative views of “enemy” make effective responses to conflict seem unnecessary. Remember how those who wouldn't go along with the dot-com bubble were dismissed as simply not getting it.
5. Direct pressure on dissenters. Members are under pressure not to express arguments against any of the group’s views.
6. Self-censorship. Doubts and deviations from the perceived group consensus are not expressed.
7. Illusion of unanimity. The majority view and judgments are assumed to be unanimous.
8. "Mind guards" are appointed. Members protect the group and the leader from information that is problematic or contradictory to the group's cohesiveness, view, and/or decisions. This is confirmatory bias writ large.”
― James Montier, The Little Book of Behavioral Investing: How not to be your own worst enemy

“Good management has a lot to do with incentives and decentives. It's about making sure the company has systems in place that incentivize desired behaviors and decentivize undesirable behavior.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, CEO of Mayflower-Plymouth

“You are not here to live a what if life. You are here to live a what is life.”
― Kristen Lee, EdD, LICSW, Worth the Risk: How to Microdose Bravery to Grow Resilience, Connect More, and Offer Yourself to the World

“You are not a hot mess or hopeless cause just because you're scared or out of sorts. We cannot hang up on the call for courage that speed dials us every day. If facing the simultaneous brokenness and possibility of living were easy, we wouldn't need therapists, besties, teachers, scientists, coaches, healers, artists, and comedians nudging us to critically think, take agency, be more self-compassionate, see our humanity, and stop taking ourselves and our so-called "failures" so seriously. "Failure" is how we learn and grow. Community and solidarity are how we heal.”
― Kristen Lee, EdD, LICSW

“The world doesn't need our airbrushed stories or curated, scripted, boring, conforming selves. It needs our truths, messiness, weirdness, creative energy, and resistance.”
― Kristen Lee, EdD, LICSW, Worth the Risk: How to Microdose Bravery to Grow Resilience, Connect More, and Offer Yourself to the World

“The biggest lie anxiety whispers at us is that we're the only ones, that it's some sort of moral failing when we need help. Don't trade the short-term comfort avoidance gives for the long-term relief that comes with working through what's uncomfortable.”
― Kristen Lee, EdD, LICSW, Worth the Risk: How to Microdose Bravery to Grow Resilience, Connect More, and Offer Yourself to the World

“Trying to skirt risk is how we squeeze out all the fun and stunt the most wondrous gift: imagination.”
― Kristen Lee, EdD, LICSW, Worth the Risk: How to Microdose Bravery to Grow Resilience, Connect More, and Offer Yourself to the World

“When we microdose bravery strategically and intentionally, we can experience the therapeutic benefits: fun, growth, freedom, and connection that makes discomfort worthwhile.”
― Kristen Lee, EdD, LICSW, Worth the Risk: How to Microdose Bravery to Grow Resilience, Connect More, and Offer Yourself to the World

“Microdosing bravery is a way to keep nourishing your indomitable spirit.”
― Kristen Lee, EdD, LICSW, Worth the Risk: How to Microdose Bravery to Grow Resilience, Connect More, and Offer Yourself to the World

“Yes, it is difficult to believe that we are not entirely rational in our daily decisions and actions. However, by admitting that we are biased, realizing that we should question our choices, and stepping outside of our comfort zone, we are able to open up our eyes to a whole new horizon.”
― Ahmed AlAnsari, The Brand Dependence Model: Identify & Mitigate Your Danger Blocks

“The more people act different, the more they act the same”
― Abhijit Naskar, Good Scientist: When Science and Service Combine

“... [behavioral economics] has its limits. As policymakers use it to devise programs, it’s becoming clear that behavioral economics is being asked to solve problems it wasn’t meant to address. Indeed, it seems in some cases that behavioral economics is being used as a political expedient, allowing policymakers to avoid painful but more effective solutions rooted in traditional economics.

Behavioral economics should complement, not substitute for, more substantive economic interventions. If traditional economics suggests that we should have a larger price difference between sugar-free and sugared drinks, behavioral economics could suggest whether consumers would respond better to a subsidy on unsweetened drinks or a tax on sugary drinks.

But that’s the most it can do.”
― George Loewenstein

“You can have your equanimity, resilience, recovery, and renewal as strong and positive, when the 114 chakras in your body are aligned and balanced.”
― Amit Ray, 72000 Nadis and 114 Chakras in Human Body for Healing and Meditation

“Courage is not always found in grand and dramatic gestures or jaw-dropping feats. It is the grassrootsy, unassuming brand of bravery that should not be underestimated.”
― Kristen Lee, EdD, LICSW, Worth the Risk: How to Microdose Bravery to Grow Resilience, Connect More, and Offer Yourself to the World

“We need a revolution in mental health awareness to help us grasp the wonder and complexity of human behavior, health and functioning, and the nuances and intersections of brilliance and madness. This starts with dismantling myopic myths that prevent us from seeing the simultaneous wonder and complexity of our fullest selves. It involves providing access to the tools that mitigate being overtaken by the ravages of burnout and mental decompensation: the very risks of living in the modern world. Our sense-making approaches need to be comprehensive- grounded both scientifically and medically, steeped in love, and in ways that account for the multidimensionality of emotional and spiritual essence. Those that go beyond what the mind can first conceive of. This new mental health imperative relies upon universal precautions and a vehement resistance to linear checklists and binary labels that frame our gorgeous spirits solely as either complex and fraught or indomitable and wondrous. It also relies not on good will and best practices but the moral courage of policy makers to treat human beings like human beings. Dogs are often treated better than people. This is our new imperative: to radically change the way we care for ourselves and one another. We cannot extricate ourselves from the fact that the lines we walk are incredibly thin and blurry, and our only hope is to rewrite and navigate them together in solidarity, with every measure of creative reason and conscious community that can be mustered...”
― Kristen Lee, EdD, LICSW, Worth the Risk: How to Microdose Bravery to Grow Resilience, Connect More, and Offer Yourself to the World

“Fighting injustice can have a way of turning people against each other instead of being able to clap back at the origins of the problems. Tackling the deep and complex work of combating racial, social, economic, and environmental injustice and working for access, equity, equality, eradicating ism's, peace, and ensuring human sustainability requires boldness, humility, hyper-vigilance, and relentless commitment to accountability...”
― Kristen Lee, EdD, LICSW, Worth the Risk: How to Microdose Bravery to Grow Resilience, Connect More, and Offer Yourself to the World

“Resilience is generated when we move from "me" to "we." Hiding only erodes resilience and weakens our bonds with one another, the very thing that can cement our indomitable spirit and keep us from total ruin. Pretending we are "fine" is not an act of courage, nor will it truly protect us from the gnawing pangs of thinking that we're the only ones. The biggest lie our minds can tell us is that we are the only ones when the only way to break free is to tell our truths.”
― Kristen Lee, EdD, LICSW, Worth the Risk: How to Microdose Bravery to Grow Resilience, Connect More, and Offer Yourself to the World

“Real risk isn't always grandiose. The act of swallowing bravery is often so miniscule, it goes completely unrecognized by the outside world. In due time our psyches and souls are primed to adapt, integrate, and digest even the rustiest, clankiest, most bitterly jarring parts of life; to become more comfortable with the uncomfortable so much so that it becomes lifeforce. Microdoses help us build the fortitude to absorb, integrate, expand, contribute, and construct the new matrix of presence and inter-beingness. The cumulative effect of such actions cannot be overstated. Consistent microdoses of bravery have powerful, palpable effects. Vitality emerges through the nourishment of real droplets of risk, sustained over time; not impulsive grand gestures and binges disguised as noble and big.”
― Kristen Lee, EdD, LICSW, Worth the Risk: How to Microdose Bravery to Grow Resilience, Connect More, and Offer Yourself to the World

“But if you need help," says Lucy, "then you should tell us. It's what we're here for. It's actually a very important part of friendship. Studies have shown that true lasting friendships that are built on the foundation of feeling comfortable to ask one another for help, last longer than those friendships you feel you have to transact in. You know? I'll do this for her, but only so she might do that for me. It's true. I read it in a book.”
― Lia Louis, The Key to My Heart

“Evil is only an option for the powerful and a suicide attempt for the powerless. That's why it's often a misconception to describe a powerless person as a good person.”
― Serhat Beyaz KOROGLU

“It’s the moral fabric that lends to behavioural pattern”
― BS Murthy

“It’s the moral fabric that lends to behavioural pattern.”
― BS Murthy

“Bob and I were soon joined, always on an informal basis since they were officially tied up with teaching and research, by Roy Hazelwood, a brilliant agent whose special area of expertise was interpersonal violence and who had gone down to Atlanta with me four years before to work ATKID-Major Case 30: the Atlanta Child Murders, and the equally brilliant Kenneth Lanning, who focused on crimes against children.”
― John E. Douglas, When a Killer Calls