Podcast fodder this week includes the first of two Iowa visits by President Donald Trump, the Iowa 1st Congressional District debate, tight U.S. House races, record fundraising in the governor’s race and early voting in person versus by mail. iowacapitaldispatch.com/2026…

“We don’t ride bicycles in Iowa,” Joe Mitchell said to President Trump during a GOP campaign rally. Iowa’s roughly 900,000 cyclists, many of whom have participated in an annual cycling tour that’s made the state synonymous with biking, weren’t amused. wapo.st/4ilkArV

At Monash Hospital, the signs declare “strictly smoke-free and vape-free”, while recorded reminders play over and over through the loudspeaker. Then there is the stigma. Patients and families arrive carrying enough fear and worry without feeling publicly judged for nicotine dependence. Protecting people from unwanted exposure matters. But placing smoking and vaping under the same prohibition symbol, without explaining the distinction, risks reinforcing the confusion that tobacco harm reduction is trying to overcome. For someone who has stopped smoking through vaping, that message can feel like their progress counts for nothing. For someone still smoking, repeated warnings offer little comfort when they are struggling. A Quitline number on a window cannot tell us whether compassionate, practical support is available when someone needs it. Hospital boundaries can be communicated respectfully. Dependence does not erase a person’s dignity, and shame should never become part of the treatment. @drjoesDIYhealth @Anne_Ruston @_davidlimbrick @JulianHillMP @maryaldred @MRobertsQLD

Society and organizations invest heavily in selecting the best leaders, and existing research shows a positivity bias by focusing on the bright side of leadership. Should we focus on finding the best leaders or avoiding the worst? Our new paper provides robust evidence for an “avoid-the-worst” principle in human leadership preferences. We found that the top 100 business schools emphasize good leadership far more than the prevention of bad leadership. But actual employee experiences from 9.9 million Glassdoor reviews show that people mentioned their leader 70% more often in the negative than positive section, and negative leader mentions predicted company ratings 1.5 times more strongly. A bad-leader mention was also associated with 30% higher odds of leaving a company within the first year among former employees, whereas a good-leader mention is associated with only 5% lower odds of leaving. We also have causal evidence across 40 countries (N = 51,433) revealing that people were more willing to sacrifice time and money to avoid a bad leader than obtain a good leader (across both morality and competence). Our research suggests that people care more about avoiding the worst leaders than getting the best. But our leading schools are focused on the opposite issue. The central question of institutional design may not be who should rule, but how to prevent bad leaders from doing too much damage. This research was led by @H_Sjastad and @jareefbnmartuza Read the full paper here: osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/8g…

Please, if you do nothing else today, please listen to or read this from @jon_rauch. Thank you, @JonHaidt, for the recommendation. #patrimonialism

New: Top officials at HHS and FDA have been working to balance Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s push to expand access to buzzy peptides with safety concerns raised by agency scientists. A peek behind the curtain with new details on the path ahead w/ the dream team @rileyraygriffin @g0ingmad @nyahphengsitthy 🎁: bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

There is a myth that when people join a group they lose their minds. I call this the myth of the mob mentality. Rather than losing their minds within a group, people typically operate with greater rationality. They operate more like Edison’s legendary innovation factory than a case of mass psychosis or hypnosis. We explain why in our latest newsletter, where we present scientific evidence that even when *every single member of the group is wrong* the group can still reach the correct answer in decision making problems. In fact, groups are about 4X as smart as individuals in a famous reasoning task. powerofusnewsletter.com/p/th… We need to debunk this myth in popular culture.