Steven Heine

I reply here to Mickey Inzlicht’s critique of our assessment of the TMT literature -led by former grad students, Lihan Chen and Rachele Benjamin. We consider the question of how can we best evaluate a literature and, judging from his critique, reach a controversial conclusion.

An ad for genetic customisation of human embryos

To be very clear, these kinds of polygenic scores are incredibly shit predictors of individual traits... HT @anjiolina.bsky.social #GATTACA

Did humans evolve to prefer religion? Research shows many atheists intuitively favour faith Research highlights Atheists often believe religious faith is positive, even though they don’t hold it themselves.

Short piece in The Conversation about our recent PNAS paper on (even atheists') intuitive preferences for religion!

Enjoy & spread as you see fit!

theconversation.com/did-humans-e...

Healthy sleep durations appear to vary across cultures | PNAS Past research finds that sleep duration is reliably linked with health yet sleep durations differ substantially between countries. We investigated ...

Very nice in @pnas.org - people who slept closer to their own culture's norms for sleep duration had better overall health. Sleep duration is more complex than often considered in a strict neuroscientific or biomedical sense. @ChristineOuBC @stevenheine.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

What’s a healthy amount of sleep? It differs from one country to another - UBC Department of Psychology Your optimal amount of sleep may depend on where you live, new UBC Psychology research has found.

Think 8 hours of sleep is the magic number? Research from Dr. @stevenheine.bsky.social included the analysis of over 5,000 people in 20 countries, revealing that the hours of sleep required for good health varies significantly across different cultures. psych.ubc.ca/news/sleep-c...

What’s a healthy amount of sleep? It differs from one country to another - UBC News New research challenges the common belief that everyone needs the same amount of sleep for good health.

What’s a healthy amount of sleep? 😴

A new UBC study analyzed sleep data and health outcomes for nearly 5,000 people in 20 countries, which revealed that the hours of sleep required for good health varies significantly across different cultures.

Read more: bit.ly/4jEq3JG

Differences in psychologists’ cognitive traits are associated with scientific divides - Nature Human Behaviour Scientific disagreements are not just a matter of using different methods or having conflicting data. Sulik et al. surveyed psychological scientists and found that disagreements are also associated wi...

"most [psychologists] thought ‘Homo economicus’ (self-interested rationality) poor model human behaviour...split on whether personality largely stable...researchers in evolution/comparative thought theories should focus more on evolution of mental faculties [evo psy]" www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The problem with parenting interventions in the Global South | Aeon Essays Early childhood development interventions in the Global South is a huge industry built on highly questionable assumptions

Excellent critique of childhood development interventions: "The privileged of Global North & South can find solace in the idea they have little responsibility for inequality. If bad childcare & poor brain development are major contributing factors to poverty, then it's parents’ job to overcome it"

I had a great discussion with Kurt and Tim at Behavioral Grooves. The Existential Playbook: How to Make Sense of Your Life behavioralgrooves.com/episode/the-...

YouTube video by The Dissenter #1072 Steven Heine: How Existential Psychology Can Help Us Build Meaningful Lives in Absurd Times

New episode (1072), with Dr. Steven Heine (@stevenheine.bsky.social). We talk about his new book, Start Making Sense: How Existential Psychology Can Help Us Build Meaningful Lives in Absurd Times. #psychology #Science

YouTube: youtu.be/oQj1VpqU1kQ
Podcast: bit.ly/4iWQfOS

I had a great discussion with Ricardo about how people maintain meaningful lives.

Ou, C., Lou, N. M., Maheshka, C., Shi, M., Takemura, K., Cheung B., & Heine, S. J. (in press). Healthy sleep durations appear to vary across cultures. PNAS. osf.io/preprints/ps...

e) Individuals whose sleep duration was closer to their country’s norms reported better health. These findings suggest that the amount of sleep associated with optimal health varies across countries. There isn’t a global standard for healthy sleep durations.

c) A quadratic relation emerged between sleep duration and health in all countries such that both too much sleep and too little sleep was associated with worse health; d) The turning points of these quadratic curves varied significantly between countries.

b) People from countries with longer sleep durations were not healthier than from countries with shorter durations. We replicated this by analyzing national sleep durations from 14 past studies which also revealed no associations with national health.

In a new paper in press at PNAS, we collected data on sleep duration and health from 5000 participants in 20 countries. There were several notable findings: a) First, average sleep durations varied substantially between countries (range = 1.57 hours).

Two common findings from sleep research are that 1) short sleep durations predict worse health outcomes, and 2) people from some cultures sleep much less than those from others. Do people from cultures with short sleep durations have worse health outcomes? 🧵

The World is Chaotic — Here's How to Find Meaning How existential psychology can keep you steady in absurd times.

Today "Start Making Sense" was named Book of the Day by the Next Big Idea Club. bookoftheday.nextbigideaclub.com/p/the-world-...

Embracing Our Freedoms, but at What Cost? People in individualistic cultures celebrate their many choices. But we often fail to recognize the psychological costs that come with having to figure everything out on our own.

Here's a blogpost I wrote on the ironic challenges that we face from having too many choices in our lives. People tend not to appreciate how much anxiety comes with the responsibility of blazing your own trail.
www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/ma...

Thanks Beth for your thoughtful review!

I wrote a piece for Aeon's Psyche Guides on how to find meaning in your life as a buffer against anxiety – psyche.co/guides/how-t... via @aeon.co

Seven Ways to Bring More Meaning to Your Life A psychologist argues that asking ourselves existential questions and recognizing our values can make life more fulfilling and meaningful.

Here's a review of Start Making Sense by the Greater Good.

Seven Ways to Bring More Meaning to Your Life greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item...

I had a really fun discussion of my book, Start Making Sense, with Kelly Leonard at Second City. www.secondcity.com/network/cate...

How to Cultivate Meaning When Life Feels Absurd Author Steven Heine shares 5 key insights from his new book, Start Making Sense: How Existential Psychology Can Help Us Build Meaningful Lives in Absurd Times.

I'm thrilled that the
@nextbigidea.bsky.social
has selected my new book, Start Making Sense, as a monthly must-read! nextbigideaclub.com/magazine/cul...

The Curious Relations Between Suffering and Meaning These have been trying times. Perhaps they can help us in our efforts to pursue a more meaningful life.

Nietzsche proclaimed “That which does not kill me makes me stronger.” I write here about how existential psychology has revealed much evidence in support of this.

The Curious Relations Between Suffering and Meaning | Psychology Today www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/ma...

Here's a tribute that I wrote for David Lynch. We used his films in our research to reveal how people strive to find meaning in what can seem meaningless. I discuss some of this work in my new book: hachettebookgroup.com/titles/steve...

You can take the DeepSeek out of China but you can’t take the China out of DeepSeek

With this book you’ll learn more about the original existentialists, how we evolved to live in an ecology of meaning, and the various psychological strategies that we rely on to make our lives meaningful. It should help you chart your way to a more engaged and purposeful life.

This question is all the more urgent because we are living in such anxious times, and people struggle in the face of stressors when they feel their life is not sufficiently meaningful.

I explore many of the questions that were raised by the existentialists, but using the tools of psychological science. In particular, I address the question of what are the foundations for living a more meaningful life.