Is Your Streak About to End? The False Belief That Can Drive Both Gambling and Anxiety
Many of us subconsciously believe there is only so much good allotted to us—so, when something good happens, watch out.
This is DATA, a monthly column by Angela Chen on numbers, nerdery, and what it means to live an evidence-based life.
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Quarterly Journal of Economics,
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Imagine that everyone gets a fixed emotional allowance each week,
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noWhat would happen would happen, so I might as well participate.
Angela Chen is a science journalist and the author of Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex, which was named one of the best books of 2020 by NPR, Electric Literature, and Them. Her reporting and essays have also appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, MIT Technology Review, The Guardian, National Geographic, Paris Review, Lapham's Quarterly, and more.
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My lesson should have been “choose risk”—change didn’t always mean closing a door.
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Asexuality
“Though desire for sex is considered one of our four primal drives, I lack such a desire almost completely.”