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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

Status is a reasonable bet on the future

Not every irrational act is a mistake. Some are the point.

28 Nov 202412 min read

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

The risk of the long game

The story we tell afterwards is tidier than the choice we made at the time.

23 Nov 20247 min read

In praise of small talk

The story we tell afterwards is tidier than the choice we made at the time.

17 Nov 20246 min read

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

Patient Forecast

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

11 Nov 20246 min read

People crossing a sunlit concrete hall

The case against the tip jar

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

6 Nov 202410 min read

People crossing a sunlit concrete hall

What the second helping teaches us about doubt

The evidence is clear, the incentives are not, and the incentives usually win.

2 Nov 20247 min read

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

What 26,000 baskets say about reason

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

31 Oct 202410 min read

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

The trust of the borrowed book

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

26 Oct 20248 min read

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

Generosity is a social bargain

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

21 Oct 202410 min read

What the group chat teaches us about kindness

The evidence is clear, the incentives are not, and the incentives usually win.

13 Oct 202412 min read

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

Why we keep receipts

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

5 Oct 20246 min read

People crossing a sunlit concrete hall

The Quiet Reader

The story we tell afterwards is tidier than the choice we made at the time.

1 Oct 20246 min read

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