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A Common Cognitive Bias Gets a Name, Definition
Doubling-back aversion—defined as the tendency for an individual to forego taking an easier or faster route when it involves retracing steps they’ve already taken on an alternate route—is defined in a new study.
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The Cost of Efficiency: Exploring Doubling-Back Aversion
Podcast: Why do we avoid retracing our steps—even when it helps us reach our goals faster? Under the Cortex explores.
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Feeling Stuck? Here Are 5 Ways to Jumpstart Your Life.
From the outside, it looked as though Adam Alter was gliding along. At 28, he had earned a doctorate in psychology from Princeton and soon afterward landed a job as a tenure-track professor at the
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Why February Is the Best Month for Resolutions
It might be the dreariest month of the year, but there are at least two things going for February: It’s short, and it’s not January. February brings a reprieve from the pressures that come with
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New Year’s Resolutions for the Anxious
The start of the new year often brings lofty ambitions. It’s 2024 — time to exercise and eat better, says a nagging voice, somewhere deep in your brain. What about learning to knit? It’s enough to
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The New Science on Making Healthy Habits Stick
Any healthy choice seems doable for a day. Building consistent good habits around exercise, sleep and nutrition in the long term is harder. Recent research is uncovering how long it takes to cement different kinds of habits—and gives
