Angela Duckworth
Psychologist and MacArthur Fellow, the Rosa Lee and Egbert Chang Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, who studies the personal qualities and situational...
“Your attention and your thinking is so much more bottom-up situational. Why did you think about coffee? Because somebody had a coffee cup out… We think of ourselves as intentional, more or less top-down directive. That's what makes us human. And we are much more like dogs and cats, reacting to things.”
The Daily Stoic · Ideas & Essays · October 2026
Holiday asked why elite athletes still need slogans on locker-room walls. Duckworth says people are far more reactive to their surroundings than they believe, and that psychologically wise people don't rely on fallible memory or fleeting intention. They "decorate their world" with reminders.
Transcript
I think it is. I think it's like more recent than 1999. But right. Anyway, the point is, is that it's, yeah. Yeah.
…you again? And it's like, yes. Like if Aaron Judge needs to be told it every day and he's getting paid hundreds of millions of dollars. The answer is yes. Then probably I can tell my nine-year-old like where the shoes go again or like why we don't do X, Y, or Z. They just need more reminders. Okay,
so, all right, two things. One is the generalizable truth here. I mean, you know, the laws of physics are inescapable. So are the laws of psychology. And one of the laws of psychology is that we are reactive to our situation. You know, you think like, oh, what did you think about all day? Like, you thought about what you wanted to think about. Your attention and your thinking is so much more like bottom-up situational. Like, why did you think about coffee? Because somebody had a coffee cup out. Like, why did you think about, you know, this quote from this author? Because that book just happened to be on a desk, right? I mean, obviously, this is how advertising works. I just think the most important thing. Or profound insight is that we think of ourselves as intentional, more or less like top-down directive. Like, that's what makes us human. And we are much more like dogs and cats, sort of like, you know, reacting to things. So that is, I think, the generalizable truth of the matter. And then, in terms of the like, okay, application of it, I was staying in my friend's house. There were…
Yes. You look at some ruin and they're like, why did they have this statue here? Why was this inscription here? They were in a way when mass culture was harder to communicate, when they couldn't send an inspirational text to their kid or whatever. Right. All the parents had to get together and…
which, you know, I have a preference for like, you know, that which is inscribed in stone over videos. But wait, can I ask you a question? I don't have a tattoo. I feel like I'm like one of only, you know, a few people now in the world who don't have a tattoo. Like, why do you have tattoos? Do you…
these are, I mean, they became book titles because I wrote books about them, but these are the, these are the sort of the main values that I try to live by or build my life on. And they're, they're helpful reminders to see. I mean, look, I think when I first got them, it was a little like, no, no…
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