A thread through the archive
Essays tagged “individual differences”. Follow an idea across the archive.
Scott Alexander examines why therapy works for some people but not others, suggesting that individual differences in mental processes might explain its varying effectiveness.
Scott Alexander explores how people can have vastly different experiences of the world and others, even in similar circumstances, due to social bubbles, varying interpretations of social cues, and unconscious influences.
Scott explains the "typical mind fallacy" - the tendency to assume everyone's mind works like your own - using examples from mental imagery, personality differences, and social behavior, arguing that rationality requires overcoming this bias.