Love Languages
Acts of Service: loving through actions, not just words
Acts of Service: when helping is the clearest way to show love For people whose main language is acts of service, nice words can feel hollo…
6 min readRead
Blog
Articles on personality, psychology, and curiosities, on the positive side, to go along with our tests.
Business and Decisions
Context-Adaptive: A Risk Tolerance That Shifts With the Situation
The contextadaptive style doesn't have a fixed risk tolerance: it shifts a lot depending on the area, cautious in some facets of life and b…
5 min readRead
Self-Awareness
Problem-Focused Coping: Acting on the Cause of Stress
Problemfocused coping: act first, feel later Problemfocused coping is one of the two major functions of coping described by psychologists R…
6 min readRead
Self-Awareness
Emotion-Focused Coping: Processing How You Feel Before Acting
Emotionfocused coping: feel before you act Emotionfocused coping is the second major style in Richard Lazarus and Susan Folkman's classic m…
5 min readRead
Self-Awareness
Social Support Coping: Facing Stress Alongside Others
Social support coping: facing stress alongside others Social support coping describes a clear strategy: faced with stress, you actively tur…
6 min readRead
Self-Awareness
Avoidant Coping: Is Putting Off the Problem Protection or Risk?
Avoidant coping: looking away, at least for now Avoidant coping describes the tendency to put off or look away from a stressful situation,…
6 min readRead
Big Five
Agreeableness: The Trait Behind Kindness and Warmth
Agreeableness is the personality dimension that places each person on a spectrum: at one end, a prosocial orientation (cooperating, trustin…
7 min readRead
Relationships and Social Life
The Adventurous Friend: Who Pulls the Group Out of Its Routine
The adventurous friend brings what routine can't provide on its own: the sense that there are still new things left to discover together. T…
4 min readRead
Relationships and Social Life
The Confidant Friend: The Group's Emotional Support
The confidant friend offers something scarce in many relationships: real attention, with no rush to give an opinion or change the subject.…
4 min readRead
Relationships and Social Life
The Loyal, Steady Friend: Stability Without Needing Noise
The loyal, steady friend doesn't need noise to hold up the bond: their presence is measured in years, not in messages per day. This article…
4 min readRead
Relationships and Social Life
The Organizer Friend: The Group's Social Glue
The organizer friend is the one who keeps a group alive without anyone asking: they propose, coordinate and keep contact from going cold ou…
4 min readRead
Relationships and Social Life
'I Love You Because I Need You' or 'I Need You Because I Love You': Erich Fromm's Line on Mature Love
Erich Fromm summed up the difference between childish and mature love in four very short sentences. Each one fits on a single line, and bet…
6 min readRead
Work and Productivity
Quality Analyst: you'd rather get it right than get it done fast
You notice the details other people miss: you'd rather do things right, even if it takes longer, than hand them over with flaws. Before cal…
5 min readRead
Self-Awareness
Health Anxiety (or Hypochondria): Why You Inspect Your Body Like a Crime Scene
Health anxiety: when the body becomes a permanent suspect Health anxiety, known for generations as hypochondria, turns a completely normal…
8 min readRead
Attachment Style
Anxious Attachment: When Fear of Abandonment Shapes the Bond
Anxious Attachment: Seeking Closeness to Quiet the Fear of Abandonment Anxious attachment shows up when the need for emotional closeness ru…
6 min readRead
Attachment Style
Disorganized Attachment: Caught Between Wanting Closeness and Distrusting It
Disorganized Attachment: Two Impulses Pulling in Opposite Directions The term disorganized attachment comes from research with infants: it…
5 min readRead
Attachment Style
How Your Attachment Style Shows Up Inside a Relationship
Attachment in Relationships: The Pattern Doesn't Look the Same Once You're in a Stable Bond Knowing your attachment style is the first step…
7 min readRead
Attachment Style
Avoidant Attachment: Independence as a Way to Stay Protected
Avoidant Attachment: When Independence Protects Against Closeness Avoidant attachment describes people who prioritize selfsufficiency and f…
5 min readRead
Attachment Style
Secure Attachment: Trusting Others Without Losing Your Independence
Secure Attachment: The Foundation Stable Bonds Are Built On Secure attachment describes people who feel comfortable with both emotional clo…
5 min readRead
Projective Tests
Arno Stern, the Man Who Found the Same Drawing in Children Everywhere on Earth
Arno Stern turned 100 on June 23, 2024. He died a week later, on June 30, in France.
6 min readRead
Business and Decisions
Bold: When Uncertainty Is More Appealing Than the Predictable
The bold style finds something appealing in uncertainty rather than threatening: it decides fast and tolerates the possibility of losing we…
6 min readRead
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Self-Awareness: The Foundation of Emotional Intelligence
Emotional selfawareness: recognizing before reacting Emotional selfawareness is the ability to identify precisely what you're feeling while…
6 min readRead
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Self-Regulation: Managing Without Repressing
Emotional selfregulation: feeling it without letting it decide for you Emotional selfregulation is the ability to manage an intense emotion…
5 min readRead
Business and Decisions
BATNA: The Harvard Term That Decides Who Holds the Power in a Negotiation
Roger Fisher, a law professor at Harvard, didn't give his students a formula for negotiating better. He gave them a single question that ch…
6 min readRead
Big Five
Big Five vs. 16 Personalities: Which Test Should You Take First?
Big Five and 16 Personalities start from a different decision about how to describe a person: one uses continuous scales, the other uses cl…
5 min readRead
Business and Decisions
Calculated: Not Avoiding Risk, Analyzing It
The calculated style doesn't avoid risk: it analyzes it. It takes on what's needed when the benefit clearly outweighs the possible cost.
6 min readRead
Work and Productivity
Cohesion Builder: you look after the team's climate as much as the result
You look after the group's climate as much as the result: you notice tension and the team's mood before anyone else does. When a disagreeme…
6 min readRead
Business and Decisions
How to Negotiate Your Salary: The First Number You Say Matters More Than You Think
Daniel Kahneman didn't just study the anchoring effect in laboratories: he also taught it in his negotiation classes. His advice for handli…
5 min readRead
Business and Decisions
How to Negotiate a Price: The Car Dealer Trick That Makes You Apologize
A woman signs the contract for a new car. The tradein value of her old car has just dropped below what she'd originally been promised.
4 min readRead
Enneagram
How to Find Out Your Enneagram Type
Within this model, finding your Enneagram type means identifying which of nine underlying motivations best explains how a person habitually…
6 min readRead
16 Personalities
How to Find Out Your Personality Type
The MyersBriggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a selfexploration questionnaire that sorts a person's preferences on four scales and sums them up…
6 min readRead
Big Five
What Big Five Test Questions Actually Look Like
The questions on a Big Five test aren't really questions, but statements about you that you rate according to how much you agree. Behind th…
5 min readRead
Business and Decisions
How a Freshman Senator Came to Control the US Senate in Four Years
In December 1948, a veteran senator from Texas decided to teach the newly elected Lyndon B. Johnson a lesson in humility, deliberately offe…
9 min readRead
Attachment Style
Attachment Style Compatibility: The Ten Possible Combinations
Attachment Style Compatibility: Ten Different Ways of Bonding as a Couple Each attachment style (secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganize…
15 min readRead
Relationships and Social Life
Aggressive Communication: Firmness That Sometimes Leaves No Room for the Other Person
Aggressive communication prioritizes your own position so directly that it can leave little room for the other person's. This article is pa…
4 min readRead
Relationships and Social Life
Assertive Communication: Saying What You Think Without Disrespecting the Other Person
Assertive communication doesn't avoid disagreement or force it: it names it with clarity and respect at the same time. This article is part…
4 min readRead
Relationships and Social Life
Passive Communication: When Staying Quiet Feels Safer Than Speaking Up
Passive communication avoids conflict in the short term at the price of accumulating unexpressed needs. This article is part of an informat…
4 min readRead
Relationships and Social Life
Passive-Aggressive Communication: Discomfort Said Without Saying It
Passiveaggressive communication says what passive communication doesn't dare to, but indirectly instead of openly. This article is part of…
4 min readRead
Attachment Style
Communication by Attachment Style: Why You Don't All Start From the Same Place
Communication by Attachment Style: The Same Conversation, Two Different Starting Points Two people can have the exact same difficult conver…
5 min readRead
Work and Productivity
Liaison Communicator: you connect people and ideas across the team
You connect people, ideas and teams with each other: your contribution usually lies in getting information and people to understand one ano…
5 min readRead
Relationships and Social Life
Connecting Isn't the Same as Relating: The Trap of Confusing Networks With Bonds
"Connecting" and "relating" sound almost like synonyms, but Zygmunt Bauman argues they aren't: a relationship obligates, a connection doesn…
6 min readRead
Self-Awareness
Trusting a Stranger: Why It Used to Be the Norm, and Today Feels Like the Exception
Trusting a stranger, argued Danish philosopher Knud Løgstrup, is the natural default of human behavior; distrust is the exception that need…
8 min readRead
Relationships and Social Life
The Accommodating Conflict Style: Prioritizing the Bond
The accommodating style prioritizes the bond over the outcome: it would rather give in than risk the relationship. This article is part of…
4 min readRead
Relationships and Social Life
The Collaborating Conflict Style: Solving It Together
The collaborating style treats conflict as a problem to solve together, not as a competition with a single winner. This article is part of…
4 min readRead
Relationships and Social Life
The Competing Conflict Style: Prioritizing the Outcome
The competing style prioritizes the outcome over the relationship: it wins the argument, though it doesn't always win the bond. This articl…
4 min readRead
Relationships and Social Life
The Compromising Conflict Style: A Quick Middle Ground
The compromising style doesn't look for the perfect solution; it looks for a reasonable, quick one. This article is part of an informationa…
4 min readRead
Relationships and Social Life
The Avoiding Conflict Style: Waiting for the Right Moment
The avoiding style isn't always running from the problem: sometimes it's waiting for the right moment to address it. This article is part o…
4 min readRead
Big Five
Conscientiousness: The Trait Behind Discipline and Organization
Conscientiousness is one of the five dimensions of personality: the one that describes the ability to regulate impulses, set longterm goals…
6 min readRead
Love Languages
Physical Touch: When Closeness Says What Words Can't
Physical touch: when closeness says what words don't quite reach For people whose main language is physical touch, a hug, a hand on the sho…
6 min readRead
Enneagram
What's the Best Enneagram Test?
No Enneagram test has validity demonstrated at the level of Big Five questionnaires, so the "best" one depends on what you want it for. For…
5 min readRead