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Author

Alina Petrova

Editor-in-chief

Alina Petrova is a Year 12 student preparing to apply to university, and the founder and editor of The Unreasonable Human. She reads across psychology, economics, behavioural science and neuroscience, and writes about the gap between how people are supposed to decide and how they actually do.

Why she started the journal

Writing by Alina Petrova

The Careful Investor

We are far better at explaining our choices than at making them.

17 Aug 20258 min read

Pale pink blossom on thin branches in front of a raw concrete wall

The trouble with the commute

With Prof. Ruth Adeyemi on what regret does to markets, marriages and the morning commute, and why the textbook still gets it wrong.

16 Aug 20253 min read

Why we buy insurance for the wrong things

Before we try to fix people, it is worth understanding what they are for.

13 Aug 20256 min read

The regret of the second helping

A small decision, repeated daily, is a life. Nobody designs it that way.

9 Aug 202513 min read

Pale pink blossom on thin branches in front of a raw concrete wall

The shape of the queue

A small decision, repeated daily, is a life. Nobody designs it that way.

7 Aug 202512 min read

Illustration of a bare tree over a faint grid, overlaid with rust-red, pale blue and black-spotted circles

The trouble with the apology

With Dr. Miriam Whitcombe on what fairness does to markets, marriages and the morning commute, and what the data actually shows.

2 Aug 20252 min read

Pale pink blossom on thin branches in front of a raw concrete wall

Reason is a stubborn tax on attention

Economists have a model. The rest of us have a Tuesday.

2 Aug 202511 min read

People crossing a sunlit concrete hall

The Honest Arithmetic

The mind is built for a different world. It copes remarkably well with this one.

26 Jul 20257 min read

People crossing a sunlit concrete hall

The case against a good excuse

Most advice assumes a person who never existed.

26 Jul 20259 min read

A lone figure climbing a pale stone staircase towards an arched window filled with light

What gossip teaches us about habit

We are far better at explaining our choices than at making them.

19 Jul 20256 min read

Illustration of a bare tree over a faint grid, overlaid with rust-red, pale blue and black-spotted circles

The trouble with the second opinion

With Prof. Ines Ferreira on what effort does to markets, marriages and the morning commute, and why the textbook still gets it wrong.

19 Jul 20252 min read

People crossing a sunlit concrete hall

Restraint, by the numbers

It looks like a flaw in the person. Mostly it is a feature of the situation.

13 Jul 20256 min read