iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 27/12/2025

Occasionally, and also slowly building up to it! Thanks for sharing

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Rational Choice Theory has been a short-cut to nowhere for the field. We need to re-think the ‘drosophila of decision science’ jtpeterson.substack.com/p/the-drosop...

jtpeterson.substack.com

The Drosophila of Decision Science

A response to 'Choose Wisely' by Barry Schwartz and Richard Schuldenfrei

Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

The paper changed significantly in the re-write. 6-pages as conversation starter for the NDM conference. I'd still love to get your take if you are not too busy with your new book :). Especially since you introduced me to the Bordalo et al. paper which makes an appearance.

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

Got a nice honorable mention from Experimental History🐐

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

That may have been the intention. But at some point the medium became the message, and it seems biases became more important than heuristics. I'm not entirely sure how Kahneman felt about that shift.

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

New article on context and the psychological paradigm, arguing that the boundaries we have put around "psychology" are in the wrong place. What we have dismissed as context is actually content. jtpeterson.substack.com/p/rethinking...

jtpeterson.substack.com

Rethinking the Edges of the Mind – Part I

What is context? Why is it so hard to study? Can we redraw the boundaries of psychology so that context becomes content?

Roger L. Cauvin @rcauvin.bsky.social · 08/03/2025

Reposted by Jared Peterson

The behaviors, problems, and outcomes that impact your customers most usually don't happen inside your product. Listen to @jaredpeterson.bsky.social describe how #UX and #prodmgmt often neglect what happens outside the product. www.productcoalition.com/p/behavioura...

productcoalition.com

Behavioural Science and Strategy Alignment

In this episode of the Product Coalition podcast, Jay Stansell interviews Jared Peterson, a behavioral scientist and co-founder of Nuance Behavior.

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

Which is why John always emphasizes that there is no single correct answer when he does TDGs. The only thing that matters is that you bring good ideas to the table.

Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

I've been getting more into military doctrine. My boss is John Schmitt who wrote War fighting, which is tactical doctrine for the Marines. I'm increasingly concerned there will be a need to know this stuff

Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

To those interested in the science of decision-making, here is a primer on the main schools of thought, the personalities behind them, and some resources for learning more. substack.com/home/post/p-...

substack.com

The Many Schools of the Great Rationality Debate

A war of acronyms and personalities

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

So we're not mapping the non-ethical side. In some sense, what we're interested in is our ability to predict someone's ethical choices. But to do that, we have to know what ethical factors they consider. eg whether they are the perpetrator or the victim, long term quality of life, etc.

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

Not naive. It means something like "how much variance can we explain on the ethical side." But the problem is circular. We can explain the majority of the variance for the probes we've written. But are our probes comprehensively testing the reasons medics choose one patient over another?

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Thanks for sharing. I follow some bioethicists, so am hoping one might chime in. We've already done a first pass on the ethical factors, but now were being asked about whether we have sufficiently mapped the decision space. And that is a hard question that I don't really know how to answer

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Has anyone done a comprehensive analysis of factors that people think are, or think should be, ethically relevant when doing triage? eg likelihood of survival is relevant, some think "woman and children first", most think race is irrelevant, etc.

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

I read somewhere that one hamburger is about 10,000 queries worth of water and electricity. But I'm not sure how many queries are worth one unit of Jared

Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

These price comparisons are getting out of control

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

It's one of the best subtitles of all time. And given that I've worked in both traditions, it seemed appropriate

Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

In fact, here's a thread from @aleximas.bsky.social where he talks a bit about it. There was also a recent paper on Loss Aversion that has people asking whether it is dead (Decisions under risk are decisions under complexity), which is part of the Cognitive Turn, as I understand it.

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

There's a paper called "The Cognitive Turn in Behavioral Economics" which is the only reference I really know of. Outside of that, it's mostly stuff I just pick up on BlueSky here and there

Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

Cognitive Turn people. Are any of you reading about Naturalistic Decision Making? Started reading *A Cognitive Theory of Reasoning and Choice* and thought, "this is just a math-y version of Dataframe Theory of Sensemaking, and Recognition Primed Decision-Making.

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Newly published follow-up article to the #BehavioralScience framework tier list series I've been doing the past few months. Curious to hear your thoughts! open.substack.com/pub/jtpeters...

Ronen Tamari @ronentk.me · 30/12/2024

Reposted by Jared Peterson

Cool to see lots of ppl getting excited about “Science Goodreads”! (x.com/sanjehorah/s...) Why it doesn’t exist yet is an interesting rabbit hole I went down a few years ago (which also resulted in me joining the @asterainstitute.bsky.social Open Science fellowship) >

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 25/12/2024

Kahneman would resist so long as he can't see it because wysiati Thaler would resist so long as it is stored with the cashews Zimbardo would write up how he resisted, but it would be fake Freud would be torn, but Id would win Mischel would pretend it was a picture of a ring, but would give in

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 25/12/2024

Anyways, merry Christmas. Make sure to get in your annual LoTR marathon in before the end of the year. It embodies the spirit of Christmas in a way few other works do. 6/

Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 25/12/2024

Many non LOTR characters could have resisted the ring for minutes or even years. But I have yet to see anyone mention someone who could toss it in the fire. Only someone who knows true redeeming love could have succeeded at the quest, and only then by losing their life for the one they love 5/

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 25/12/2024

If Sam had been able to see and accept the change in Smeagol, Smeagol may have been redeemed. And at the end, pulled between the ring and his love for Frodo, unable to give up the ring, but compelled by love, Smeagol may have "voluntarily cast himself into the fire" in a final act of love 4/

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 25/12/2024

From very early on you as the reader know Frodo can't fulfill his quest. You know from the start of the book that divine intervention will be needed. However, Tolkien did think there was an individual who might have been capable of fulfilling the quest voluntarily; Smeagol. 3/

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 25/12/2024

Hobbits don't have main character energy, which is why a hobbit had to be the one to carry the ring. But while Frodo got far, he never stood a chance. Gandalf told Frodo to throw the One Ring into the fire at Bag End, and he couldn't do it even then. 2/

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 25/12/2024

Only someone as uninterested in the ring as Bombadil could resist the One Ring and throw it in Mount Doom. But such a person would never care enough to try. Basically, no one with main character energy could ever fulfill the quest. Which is why it falls to the unlikeliest of creatures; hobbits 1/

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 25/12/2024

Faramir has greater mental fortitude than Sazed in my mind. Faramir would have never had the faith crisis that Sazed had

Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 25/12/2024

Szeth would resist better than Sazed I think. Sazed is an amazing human. But Szeth is inhumanely obedient

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Reposted by Jared Peterson

Ben Golub @bengolub.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

In economics, editors, referees, and authors often behave as if a published paper should reflect some kind of authoritative consensus. As a result, valuable debate happens in secret, and the resulting paper is an opaque compromise with anonymous co-authors called referees. 1/

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

EvoPsych isn't when it goes for the fundamental stuff (eg the functional role of pain). But when I see things that seem very cultural given an evolutionary explanation. I'm just not sure how they get there. (That and the problem of old evidence. But all science has that problem.)

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

Good article. Definitely cleared up some misconceptions I had about EvoPsych, including the modularity assumption. One question I still have is how EcoPsych can show a behavior is evolutionary/cultural for behaviors that aren't present in non-human apes? What's the criteria? My problem with...

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

We did interviews with multiple people who refused to turn their camera on, responded with a delay, and even asked us to put the questions in the chat. Super obvious they were using an LLM. But it shocked us. They thought they could get away with pretending to be a medic during a live interview!

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

I told my future wife on our first date that anklyosaurus was my favorite dinosaur. I have to imagine that was what sealed the deal.

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Over the past couple months I have been doing a tier list of #BehavioralScience frameworks. It generated lots of really great discussion with many disagreements. Here is an updated and centralized resource for all the rankings. substack.com/home/post/p-...

substack.com

Ranking Behavioral Science Frameworks

A tier list of various behavior change frameworks that are popular in the field of Behavioral Science.

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

A friend of mine talks about the "Taco Bell stage" of intellectuals. It's the stage where every lecture they give consists of the same 5 ingredients; a couple of anecdotes, and a few talking points

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

This is a really useful heuristic that I also use. For many academics, everything is a nail to be hit by their particular hammer. And if you criticize the hammer, the same defensive mechanisms are always present

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

Does anyone have suggestions for feeds to follow that haven't been overtaken by politics? I came here to discuss research and philosophy, not for political platitudes and rage posting

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Reposted by Jared Peterson

Alexander Berger @albrgr.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

I just got the kids down for naptime so I wanted to take a second to point out two key problems (and a few areas of agreement) I see with this morning’s @emmagoldberg.bsky.social @nytimes.com article about effective altruism: 🧵 bsky.app/profile/nyt...

bsky.app

The New York Times (@nytimes.com)

Effective altruism, the recent trend in philanthropy, has been to look for the most bang for your buck. Maybe you don’t have to, Emma Goldberg argues. https://nyti.ms/41GHinN

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

...Kahneman thought cataloguing biases was a useful exercise vs using the paradigm purely for discovering heuristics.

Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

Is that the memory analysis? When I presented Kahneman with an early form of my above arguments, he mentioned it. Kahneman thought the above arguments sort of reify biases, which was not my intent. But I never got to clarify my argument before he passed. It is still unclear to me how much...

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Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

Arguably better descriptions ALWAYS exist. It is always better to describe a behavior using a heuristic than a bias. The former is an actual explanation, whereas a bias is merely explaining what a behavior is not (ie not "economically rational").

Jared Peterson @jaredpeterson.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

Tendencies aren't laws. They're not even models. It's the average result we find when we do studies. Without a causal model, it is hard to know when a finding will generalize. It's hard to even know what counts as a replication.