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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

Why we round up

With Dr. Daniel Hartley on why loyalty is so hard to measure and so easy to fake, and whether we should try to fix it.

26 Jul 20263 min read

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

Envy is a social bargain

Most advice assumes a person who never existed.

25 Jul 202611 min read

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

Envy is a social bet on the future

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

16 Jul 202610 min read

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

Good enough, on purpose

Satisficing is not a failure to optimise. It is the only strategy that fits inside a day.

14 Jul 202610 min read

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

The trouble with the long game

With Dr. Patrick Adeyemi on whether certainty can be taught, bought or merely inherited, and what the data actually shows.

12 Jul 20262 min read

The risk of small talk

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

10 Jul 202614 min read

Hope is a slow bargain

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

4 Jul 202611 min read

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

The trouble with the receipt

With Dr. Sofia Sato on what regret does to markets, marriages and the morning commute, and whether we should try to fix it.

28 Jun 20263 min read

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

A short history of the empty diary

What feels like a preference is often just a default nobody questioned.

28 Jun 20268 min read

People crossing a sunlit concrete hall

The Patient Mercies

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

27 Jun 20267 min read

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

The case against small talk

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

20 Jun 20267 min read

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

Boredom, by the numbers

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

19 Jun 202614 min read

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