What's In A Name?

An entertaining explainer of the name-letter effect / implicit egoism — the subconscious preference for things resembling your own name. Via Pelham et al's 'Why Susie Sells Seashells': more Phils in Philadelphia, Dennises among dentists, Lawrences among lawyers, Geoffreys among geologists, even birthday/city matches (2/02 -> Two Harbors) and batters named K striking out more. Introduces implicit egoism (preferring what's associated with you — a candidate mechanism for the endowment effect and for belief calcification) and the self-esteem-regulation angle (the effect peaks in high-self-esteem people after a self-esteem threat). Caveat the post predates: the Pelham 'Dennis the dentist' implicit-egoism literature is a prominent replication-crisis casualty (Simonsohn and others argued the effects are largely confounded/artifactual), so the confident 'eliminated as many confounders as possible' framing is shakier than it reads.

Quality 68 · Strong. Upper-Solid. Clear, fun, and a good intro to subconscious bias, but it curates Pelham's research, and that specific implicit-egoism literature has since been seriously contested — lowering its quality-as-it-reads-now to the top of the Solid band.

Claude’s paradigm shift 35 · Slight. Moderate — reports Pelham's findings; the implicit-egoism / self-esteem framing is borrowed.

Real-world impact 2 · Minor. An entertaining explainer of the (since-contested) name-letter effect / implicit egoism, curating others' research; pedagogical reach within the community, no material-world change → RWI 2.