Sometimes I read a study and go: “Wait, WHAT?”
Or: “This is actually brilliant.”
Or just sit there thinking: “How did they even come up with this?”
To me, research isn’t just about facts.
It’s about dreaming.
And learning from the beautiful (and sometimes terrible) mistakes of others.

We talk a lot about "managing emotions".
But what if the real trick is to understand where they come from?

Surprise - they are not random.
Not negative behaviour. Not drama. Not “too much.”
They’re tools. Survival tools.

Fear? Helps you stay alive.
Anger? Protects your boundaries.
Sadness? Signals that you need attention, slows you down.

And Darwin was one of the first scientists to study emotions. Facial expressions are meaningful — they are part of nature.

Interested?

In the 1870s, Darwin set out to prove that emotions are universal.

Fear, anger, joy, guilt and more — he believed these emotions were inherited through evolution.

In The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), Darwin teamed up with photographer Oscar Rejlander to capture real emotional expressions. He showed these photos to people asking: "What emotion do you see?"
Most gave the same answers — regardless of culture or language.

Sometimes it is important to remember that 👀

Can your face reveal what you feel—even when you try to hide it?

Psychologist Paul Ekman spent decades proving that it can.

In the 1960s, he set out to answer a simple but radical question:
Are emotions universal?

To find out, he traveled to an isolated tribe in Papua New Guinea—people who had never seen TV, movies, or Western media. He showed them photographs of people making different facial expressions: anger, fear, joy, disgust, sadness, surprise.
And they recognized them all.

Ekman’s research proved that emotions—and how we express them—aren’t just learned from culture. They’re hardwired into us as human beings.

But that was just the beginning.
Ekman went on to identify microexpressions—tiny, involuntary facial movements that last less than a second. They happen when we try to suppress or hide an emotion, but our face betrays us.

Imagine, a flash of fear before a fake smile. A flicker of contempt in a calm conversation. It can be detected.

Paul created the Facial Action Coding System (FACS)—a map of all facial muscle movements. It’s used in law enforcement, psychology, even by actors and animators.

His work even inspired the show Lie to Me, but in reality, Ekman wasn’t just hunting liars—he wanted to help us understand each other more deeply.

What he really showed is this:

Emotions are the human language.
We all speak it.
Even when we stay silent.

We live in a time when information hits us like a firehose.

Bold claims, viral videos, bite-sized “facts” with no sources — and suddenly everyone’s an expert. Some of it’s marketing. Some of it’s well-meaning. But either way, something gets lost: our ability to think for ourselves.

If you read or hear something and find yourself thinking, “Wait… is that actually true?” — that moment matters.
That’s your cue to slow down and look deeper. Who’s saying this? Is there research behind it? What do other sources say? You don’t need to become a scientist — just stay curious enough to ask, “Where is this coming from?”

Not everything can (or needs to) be backed by a study. But when you can find any kind of proof — it helps. It gives structure. It shows you whether an idea actually holds up when tested.

That said, not all studies are created equal.
Some are rushed. Some are weak. Some get misinterpreted. So ask yourself: Was it peer-reviewed? What kind of journal is it? Is it widely cited? Has it been repeated by others?

Critical thinking doesn’t mean doubting everything.
It means taking a breath before you accept something as fact. Asking better questions. And forming your own view instead of just repeating someone else’s.

Because in a world where information spreads faster than understanding, curiosity is one of the few things that still keeps us grounded.

I am back!

Today I caught myself thinking about micromanagement

No matter how much experience someone has, even when there is trust, this dynamic can still show up. It seems to be less about competence and more about something deeper.

And honestly, it’s hard to say what works better: bringing people fully into the process from the very beginning,
or sharing things gradually and revealing the full picture only at the end.

Some people want to be on board at every step. Others just want the outcome.

The only thing that feels consistently true is that trust has to be built. And what works with one person might completely fail with another.

And maybe the most interesting part is this:
What we often try to avoid is navigating expectations, dealing with reactions, sitting with discomfort. This is actually the place where a lot of growth happens.
That’s where you start to understand
how expectations are formed,
how tension builds,
and how to stay grounded when things don’t go as planned.

And it makes me think — this isn’t limited to one context.
It shows up everywhere.

So the real question is:
do you learn to be a bit of a psychologist in how you interact with people,
or do you try to stay in your own lane and keep that distance?

I’m still figuring out what actually works.

For those in the research community who value their sanity

Today I’m not coming with a philosophical thought, but with something actually useful

Recently I’ve been thinking about one tool that genuinely feels underrated that calls Fireflies.ai
I keep noticing that not that many people know about it, even though it makes working with interviews and calls so much easier. And the funny part that I actually discovered it through other researchers.
Small communities really do help you find the best stuff.

First of all it is about the transcription.
It’s insanely good. Like… you barely need to fix anything.

Second good thing is the built-in AI.
It doesn’t just summarize, but it actually gives you a solid review that helps you quickly make sense of the material.

Third point is that you can work with the AI assistant separately.
And honestly, this is probably the only place where it falls a bit short 🫠
Sometimes it’s just easier to move things into other ai platforms, especially when you already have your tone of voice, structure, and criteria dialed in.

But overall, I really recommend trying it.
It’s one of those tools that quietly saves you hours without you even noticing.

Hi everyone!

I had the pleasure of taking part in a wonderful lecture on confidence, self-perception, and the illusion of failure in public space.

The idea for this lecture grew out of conversations with actor and confidence coach Nikita Menshov. We wanted to bring together two perspectives: practical work on self-expression and public presence, and a research-based view on how people perceive themselves, mistakes, and the judgment of others.

Thank you to everyone who joined us — it was a thoughtful, engaged, and genuinely warm conversation. I’ll also be sending the lecture materials to all participants by email now.

After the lecture, I had the idea to gradually post the full material here as a series, so more people can go through it step by step.

Thank you all so much! We’d love to keep growing and do more events like this — both online and offline.

I also decided to create the rus language channel — in a few minutes I will share it with you 🔥

Here is the rus language version of the channel for those who asked ♥️

https://t.me/about_research_r

How successful women were dismissing their own achievements back in 1978 (Clance & Imes, 1978)

I opened my last lecture with this paper because back in 1978, the authors were already describing what we now call impostor syndrome.

It’s a short paper, and to me its value lies in how early and how clearly the authors captured the inner conflict of women who were objectively successful but still couldn’t fully believe in their own abilities.

Over five years, the authors worked with more than 150 high-achieving women. These included PhDs, respected professionals, and students recognized for outstanding academic performance. Most were white women between 20 and 45 from middle- and upper-class backgrounds.

What moved me about this paper, and also deeply saddened me, was the authors’ gentle honesty. There is something very human in the way they describe these women. Women who were already doing remarkable things, and still felt like frauds. A lot of our professional and public life has been built on the shoulders of incredibly brave women who kept going even while doubting themselves.

The authors describe two common patterns.

In one, the girl grows up in a family where someone else is seen as the smart one, while she is cast as the sensitive or socially skilled one. No matter how well she does, she struggles to see her achievements as proof of intelligence.

In the other, she is raised to believe she is exceptional and that everything should come easily. So when effort is required, she takes it as evidence that she is not truly gifted.

Of course, reducing 150 women to just two patterns is simplistic. But the paper matters because the authors recognized this experience at all and gave it language.

They also describe the patterns that keep impostor feelings alive over time. Overwork. Hiding behind what authority figures want to hear. Looking for external validation that never quite sticks.

I also found it striking that they emphasized group therapy. The moment one woman says out loud what she thought was her private shame, others realize they are not alone. That part still feels very current to me.

The saddest thing is that in 2026 this does not read like distant history. These patterns are still easy to recognize in ourselves, in people we love and in the people we work with. Almost fifty years later, many women are still doing brilliant things while struggling to believe they deserve them.