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The Friendship Checkup: How to Reevaluate Relationships and Take Steps to Repair Them
As the pandemic has led us to reassess what’s important in our lives, many people have been reevaluating their friendships, reflecting on who they really value and which relationships are healthy or balanced. While the
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Much of What You Know About Groupthink Is Wrong
Everyone knows the concept of groupthink. A tightly knit and overconfident set of decision makers form an insular echo chamber, fail to see the big picture, and end up making disastrous decisions. By now, most
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People Aren’t Meant to Talk This Much
Your social life has a biological limit: 150. That’s the number—Dunbar’s number, proposed by the British psychologist Robin Dunbar three decades ago—of people with whom you can have meaningful relationships. What makes a relationship meaningful? Dunbar
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Group Think
How do the groups you identify with shape your sense of self? Do they influence the beer you buy? The way you vote? Psychologist Jay Van Bavel says our group loyalties affect us more than
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America needs a Chief Friendship Officer
America is suffering from a lack of friendship. The average American hasn’t made a new friend in the last five years. According to the American Enterprise Institute’s American Perspectives Survey from May 2021, Americans report
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The Surprising Benefits of Talking to Strangers
Nic spent most of her childhood avoiding people. She was raised by a volatile father and a mother who transferred much of the trauma she’d experienced onto her daughter. The combination left Nic fearful and