Social psychologists have shown human decisions to be sensitive to numerous ordinary, possibly nonconscious, situational contingencies, motivating the view that control is largely illusory, and that our choices are largely governed by such external contingencies. Against this view is evidence that self-control and goal-maintenance are regularly displayed by humans and other animals, and evidenc...

Social life consists of making mistakes, then correcting them. The big questions do not concern who makes the fewest mistakes and why, but whether the mistakes are fruitful, how fast people recognize them, and how well they correct them. The same principles apply to writing books, even if the interaction and error-correction take longer to operate than in everyday conversation. This symposium’s...