October 3, 2010

The Human Nature Top 10

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Over the past few days I happen to have posted about two aspects of human nature that most people don’t pay enough attention to:

  1. Loss aversion: people really, really hate to lose something they already have and will forego even favorable risks to avoid it.

  2. Regression to the mean: an especially strong performance is likely to be followed by a weaker performance and vice versa.

I propose we construct a top ten list of similar things. Not personal pet theories, but aspects of human nature that are (a) widely accepted and relatively noncontroversial among professionals, and (b) underappreciated by most of us. They can come from anywhere: economics, psychology, sociology, politics, anthropology, whatever.

(“Underappreciated” is important! You might believe, for example, that people who fall in love do stupid things. And maybe so. But this is not exactly something that’s failed to attract sufficient attention in popular culture.)

I encourage other bloggers to join in. What are your favorite aspects of human nature that get short shrift in popular discourse even though they’re pretty strongly supported in the academic literature? It’s a weekend and this should be a fun exercise. Let’s hear it.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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