Skip to content

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 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

Why we misremember the past

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

30 Sept 20246 min read

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

The shape of the honest mistake

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

25 Sept 20245 min read

People crossing a sunlit concrete hall

The case against the weather forecast

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

24 Sept 20247 min read

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

In praise of the empty diary

Most advice assumes a person who never existed.

15 Sept 202412 min read

The Unfinished Ledger

Most advice assumes a person who never existed.

13 Sept 20248 min read

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

A short history of the apology

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

9 Sept 20249 min read

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

In praise of the apology

Most advice assumes a person who never existed.

3 Sept 202410 min read

People crossing a sunlit concrete hall