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context effects

Essays tagged “context effects”. Follow an idea across the archive.

Essays on context effects

2 essays

May 7, 2026ACX

Contra Everyone On Taste

Scott argues that aesthetic discussions wrongly conflate sensory delight with novelty and context, and that modern art's obsession with being part of a historical conversation has led to the abandonment of beauty in favor of mechanical innovation.

35 min read 5,410 words

Jul 9, 2011LW

Wanting vs. Liking Revisited

Scott explains why 'wanting' and 'liking' diverge by examining reinforcement learning mechanisms like context-dependence, intermittent reinforcement, and hyperbolic discounting, concluding that this undermines the concept of stable preferences.

8 min read 1,231 words

behavioral psychology context effects hyperbolic discounting