Samaneh Saadat

“As sociologists are fond of pointing out, many of these aphorisms appear to be direct contradictions of each other. Birds of a feather flock together, but opposites attract. Absence indeed makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight is out of mind. Look before you leap, but he who hesitates is lost. Of course, it is not necessarily the case that these beliefs are contradictory—because we invoke different aphorisms in different circumstances. But because we never specify the conditions under which one aphorism applies versus another, we have no way of describing what it is that we really think or why we think it. Common sense, in other words, is not so much a worldview as a grab bag of logically inconsistent, often contradictory beliefs, each of which seems right at the time but carries no guarantee of being right any other time.”
― Duncan J. Watts, Everything is Obvious: Once You Know the Answer

“psychologists have shown that an individual’s choices and behavior can be influenced by “priming” them with particular words, sounds, or other stimuli. Subjects in experiments who read words like “old” and “frail” walk more slowly down the corridor when they leave the lab. Consumers in wine stores are more likely to buy German wine when German music is playing in the background, and French wine when French music is playing. Survey respondents asked about energy drinks are more likely to name Gatorade when they are given a green pen in order to fill out the survey. And shoppers looking to buy a couch online are more likely to opt for an expensive, comfortable-looking couch when the background of the website is of fluffy white clouds, and more likely to buy the harder, cheaper option when the background consists of dollar coins.11”
― Duncan J. Watts, Everything is Obvious: Once You Know the Answer

“In any given situation we know the point we’re trying to make, or the decision we want to support, and we choose the appropriate piece of commonsense wisdom to apply to it.”
― Duncan J. Watts, Everything is Obvious: Once You Know the Answer

“effort of will or self-control is tiring; if you have had to force yourself to do something, you are less willing or less able to exert self-control when the next challenge comes around.”
― Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow