Some Signs of Harmful or Untrustworthy Relationships

November 3, 2023

Image generated by Clearer Thinking team using Adobe Express

Coauthored with the Clearer Thinking team and cross-posted from the Clearer Thinking blog. We recently conducted qualitative research by crowd-sourcing over 100 open-ended responses to the question: "What signs do you look for that help you identify people who are likely to be untrustworthy or who are likely to hurt you if they become your close friend or partner?" We thought the answers contained some insights that may help you to identify people with whom it would be risky ...

Awkwardly Embracing Awkwardness

September 25, 2022

All else being equal, it's good to avoid creating awkwardness. But too much awkwardness-avoidance can be harmful. Lately, I've been trying to accept a bit more awkwardness (rather than reflexively avoiding it) in cases where I think doing so can produce value. Here are four areas where I'm leaning more into awkwardness: 1. When asked for feedback on a project (and I think it will fail), I'm usually tempted to focus on what I like about it. I've now become more likely ...

What’s the link between depression and anxiety?

January 10, 2021

This image is from my colleague Amanda Metskas’ post on the Clearer Thinking blog, “Understanding the two most common mental health problems in the world:” https://www.clearerthinking.org/post/understanding-the-two-most-common-mental-health-problems-in-the-world

If you study depression and anxiety (in the U.S.), you find that they are correlated to a shockingly high degree (e.g., in one of my studies, when I correlated PHQ-9 depression scale scores with GAD-7 anxiety scale scores, I found that r = 0.82 ). Additionally, many studies have found that SSRIs (and other medications) help people with both depression and anxiety, as do certain therapeutic modalities such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, suggesting further linkage. Fin...