🥪 Psychologists reveal a smarter way to give feedback than the ‘compliment sandwich’

A nice PCP, a praise, critique, praise sandwich, where the praise is nice and lean and the critique is ripe. I love that.*

The good news is that you know what a compliment sandwich is. The bad news is that experts say it doesn’t work as well as you think. The good news is that you can just stop using it.

As Erik Barnes reports, experts have soured on the sandwich because, among other reasons, it puts people on defense when receiving praise. “OK, I really killed it on that presentation last week. What did I do wrong?”

So what do we do instead? Just throwing down a critique seems harsh. The good news is that our article has lots of answers and suggestions. The bad news is that I won’t be including them in the newsletter today. The good news is the button to read them is right here.

* - Ugh, now I’m going to wind up watching The Princess Bride again tonight.

And what did we learn?

Yesterday’s poll was a twisty one meant to be fun and confounding. We simply asked how many people would choose the most popular answer. 50.8% of people thought 75% of people would choose the most popular answer, which means the 26.2% of people who thought 50% of people would choose the most popular answer were correct. Right? I think I got that right.

• 100% (11.5%)

• 75% (50.8%) < Most popular choice.

• 50% (26.2%) < Correct answer!

• 25% (11.5%)
  

Image of the day

🧠 The 21-day brain hack that makes happiness your default setting

Joy isn’t just a feeling, it’s a neural pathway waiting for a workout.

This hits a little close to home! A 2023 National Library of Medicine study found that writing “Three Good Things” daily improved positive affect and life satisfaction. I write three GOOD things every day, and I can add a “hear, hear!*” to that idea.

Chloë Bean, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Los Angeles, encourages her clients to write by hand to maximize results by leveraging mind-body coordination. (I would counter that one must have penmanship that can later be read, which I do not.)

As Mark Wales reports, a growing body of research suggests you can train your brain to focus on happiness rather than on stress. The best part is that training your brain to find the good leaves it less time to find the bad.

* - Hear, hear? Here here? Hear here? It’s more fun to ramble hear… here, rather, than it is to look this up. I think it’s “hear, hear”, right?

📵 7 oddly satisfying things to do instead of doomscrolling

Origami, chai, and coloring books: what people do instead of melting their brains online

There’s a glitch in the system, and it’s us. We know we shouldn’t stare into the depressing rectangle all night. We know it starts with a funny cat video and ends with an algorithmically curated firehose of AI-generated hate-fuel. We close the app in disgust, toss and turn thanks to the blue light and existential dread, and the next day... we do it again.

The team here at GOOD likes to think of this newsletter as one thing you can do instead. But, try though we might, you read faster than we can write, and sometimes you need more options.

Mark Wales waded into Reddit’s r/simpleliving and surfaced seven beautifully low-tech, deeply human ways to break the doomscroll spell. Ways like folding an origami crane from a grocery receipt. Or coloring cute animals with the good markers.

Raytheon patented the microwave oven on this day 80 years ago. The following day, microwave popcorn manufacturers began telling everyone not to use the Popcorn Button to make popcorn for some reason.

Also, [REDACTED] years ago, my father was born. Happy birthday, Dad!

A GOOD Throwback is a new segment we’re trying, in which we explore things we might have covered if we’d been around at the time.

Do you have something GOOD to share?

We’re always on the lookout for uplifting, enlightening, and engaging content to share with readers like you. If you have something you think should be featured in the Daily GOOD, let me know!

💬 From the group text…

One cub got carried across the river, and I have to imagine there’s a good reason.

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