By kind
Theories
An explanatory account that could be right or wrong, held to its evidence.
15 entries
Attachment Theory
Bowlby's theory that infants are wired to seek a caregiver's protection, and that the caregiver's responsiveness, first measured by Ainsworth's Strange Situation, sets a template for how the child expects relationships to work.
10 min
TheoryDemocratic Peace Theory
The most-tested regularity in international relations: liberal democracies almost never go to war with one another, though they fight non-democracies as readily as anyone.
10 min
TheoryDependency Theory
Poor countries are not simply behind; they are kept poor by the very way they are plugged into the world economy.
10 min
TheoryDual-Process Theory
The claim that judgment runs on two functionally distinct kinds of mental processing: one fast and automatic, one slow and effortful.
8 min
TheoryGoal-Setting Theory
Specific, difficult goals produce higher performance than vague or easy ones, through named mechanisms and inside strict limits that, when ignored, make the same tool backfire.
9 min
TheoryGroupthink
Irving Janis's theory that tight-knit, high-esteem groups under stress suppress dissent to preserve unanimity, and decide worse for it.
9 min
TheoryImplicit Bias
The idea that people hold automatic, unendorsed associations that can bias judgment, and the hard, unresolved fight over whether the test that made it famous actually measures or predicts anything.
10 min
TheoryModernization Theory
The claim that the richer a country becomes, the more likely it is to become and stay a democracy.
8 min
TheoryNeoliberal Institutionalism
Self-interested states, though they answer to no world government, can still cooperate because institutions cut the costs and risks of dealing with one another.
9 min
TheorySocial Identity Theory
The theory that sorting people into groups, even trivial and arbitrary ones, is enough by itself to make them favor their own group.
10 min
TheoryStructural Realism
State behavior is driven by the structure of an anarchic system and the distribution of power within it, not by human nature or the kind of regime a state has.
10 min
TheoryThe Adolescent Brain
The theory that teenage recklessness comes from timing: a reward and social system that matures early, running ahead of a self-control system that matures late.
10 min
TheoryThe Balance of Power
States tend to align against whoever is getting too strong, because no one wants to live at the mercy of a single dominant power.
10 min
TheoryThe Dunning-Kruger Effect
The claim that the least competent tend to overrate themselves the most, because the skills needed to do well are the same skills needed to judge how well you did.
10 min
TheoryThe Labor Theory of Value
The claim that the economic value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of socially necessary labor required to produce it.
7 min