personality

An RSA Animate whiteboard adaptation of Dan Pink's talk on what motivates people at work. It argues that beyond simple tasks, autonomy, mastery and purpose drive performance more than money.

Veritasium examines the role of luck in success, with simulations and examples showing how small advantages and chance can compound. It argues that top outcomes are disproportionately luck-driven while still crediting effort.

CGP Grey's sarcastic animated video adapted from the book How to Be Miserable, listing habits that reliably make people unhappy. By inverting the advice, it shows what to avoid and prompts reflection on goals and routines.

CGP Grey explains how ideas spread like germs, and why content that triggers outrage spreads fastest, using a study on what makes online content viral. He argues that opposing outrage-driven memes feed each other.

Veritasium debunks the idea of learning styles, such as being a visual learner, with an interview with Daniel Willingham and a memory experiment. It argues that a multimodal approach helps everyone.

Veritasium examines which experts have real expertise, drawing on chess research and work by Klein and Kahneman. It explains that expertise comes from pattern recognition built through deliberate practice in valid, feedback-rich environments.

CGP Grey explains how traffic jams come from human driving behavior such as tailgating and reaction delays, and how leaving gaps and smoothing speed would reduce congestion. It also touches on self-driving cars.

A short Veritasium video explaining regression to the mean and how ignoring it leads to wrong conclusions about punishment versus reward, medical treatments and sports streaks. It uses the example of flight instructors who believed criticism works better than praise.

A Technology Connections video essay on how analog and digital clocks shape different mental models of time, with the minute hand acting as a progress indicator.

Kurzgesagt explains why humans feel loneliness, its evolutionary role, and how modern life can turn it into a harmful downward spiral. It cites research and offers ideas on what to do about it.

An RSA Animate drawing of Barbara Ehrenreich's talk on the darker side of positive thinking. It argues that forced positivity in culture, work and policy can be harmful and played a part in the financial crisis.

A short animated RSA piece with Dr Brene Brown's voiceover on the difference between empathy and sympathy. She argues that real connection requires getting in touch with your own vulnerability, rather than trying to fix someone's pain.

Veritasium explores why time seems to speed up as we age, covering chronoception and several competing explanations beyond the common proportional-theory argument.

Derek Sivers annotates a short clip of a lone dancer at a festival, showing how a first follower turns a ridiculous act into a movement. He draws out lessons about leadership and making it easy to follow.

A Veritasium video that runs the 2-4-8 rule-guessing puzzle on people to show how they test only examples that confirm their hypothesis. It uses this to illustrate confirmation bias and falsification.

FortNine's tongue-in-cheek guide to why drivers fail to see motorcyclists and how riders can make themselves more visible. It touches on perception psychology, including the role of saccades.

Veritasium takes an IQ test and examines what IQ measures, its history including military use and eugenics, its controversies, and how it correlates with life outcomes. Experts including Cecil Reynolds and Stuart Ritchie contribute.

This Place argues that the uncanny valley is a flawed concept, since 'human likeness' is too broad and the supporting evidence is cherry-picked. It proposes that the creepiness really comes from how animated characters and robots move.

Dr. K of HealthyGamerGG argues that gifted kids can be seen as special needs, tracing a path from the gifted label to burnout and perfectionism.

Veritasium explores why the number 37 turns up so often, drawing on Tom Magliery's collection of 37 sightings and a poll of about 200,000 people asked to pick a random number. It covers how humans choose numbers and why 37 stands out.

A short excerpt from Frans de Waal's TED talk showing a capuchin monkey fairness experiment in which two monkeys are paid unequally, one with cucumber and one with grapes. The shortchanged monkey reacts angrily.

An RSA Animate illustrating a lecture by psychologist Philip Zimbardo on how people's perspectives on time (past, present, future) shape work, health and well-being.

Vsauce explores how human reasoning works, drawing on the social theory of reason and the extended mind thesis, made in partnership with Bill Gates around climate change.

Veritasium's Derek Muller spends an hour in a silent, dark anechoic chamber at BYU to test the claim that 45 minutes is the most anyone can bear. He reports on his experience and other people's reactions.

An Extra Credits episode on how games use Skinner box operant conditioning and reward schedules to keep players playing and spending. It argues for more immersive design mechanics than simple reward loops.

Dr. K of HealthyGamerGG explains why people feel unmotivated and unable to start tasks after hours of YouTube or similar distractions. He frames it as a result of how social media is designed to capture attention, and says not to blame yourself.

A School of Life video arguing that everyone marries someone who is somewhat wrong for them, and that this is unavoidable. It is a four-minute version of an essay by Alain de Botton.

An RSA Animate adaptation of a Dan Ariely lecture on dishonesty. It explores when ordinary people lie or cheat and how they rationalize small acts of dishonesty.

A Veritasium video on survivor bias, explaining how an observed sample can be incomplete and skewed. It uses examples such as bombers and famous success stories.

A ten-minute explainer from Hypermind on the wisdom of crowds, covering Galton's discovery and the diversity theorem. It argues that collective intelligence comes from diversity, independence and aggregation.

Tom Scott explains Gricean maxims, the unwritten guidelines that shape how we understand each other. He uses examples such as why 'asbestos-free cereal' sounds suspicious.

A Veritasium explainer on how the brain works and how we learn. It is inspired by Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow and covers System 1 and System 2 thinking and why harder learning builds skill.

Harvard professor Arthur Brooks explains why boredom is useful rather than something to avoid. He describes how a wandering mind engages the brain's default mode network, which supports creativity and curiosity, and suggests it may protect against depression.

An animated Sprouts video presenting Dietrich Bonhoeffer's argument that stupidity is more dangerous than evil, because reason cannot reach stupid people. It frames stupidity as a social and moral phenomenon.

Wendover Productions explains counterintuitive riot control techniques based on research, showing that effective tactics tend to avoid violence.

Vsauce looks at 'juvenoia', the exaggerated fear that new media and youth culture are corrupting the young. It gives historical examples of older generations complaining about the next one.

Vsauce explores whether people in past decades really looked older than people of the same age today, or whether photographic and cultural factors make them seem so. It draws on old photos, yearbooks and perception research.