Growth Mindset Psychology: The Science of Self-Improvement · Sam Webster Harris | Growth Mindset Psychology

Surrounded by Conformists: How to spot the 5 types of NPC and think your own thoughts - [Psychology of non-player characters]

January 27, 2026·43 min·3 clips

The brain uses 20% of your energy but can consciously process only about 40 bits a second.

The episode opens on repetition. It starts from the sense that online life has become oddly predictable, with the same outrage, the same phrases, and the same certainty showing up everywhere. Bots are part of that joke. The show says the line between humans and bots is getting blurrier because machines are becoming more human-like, while humans are also becoming more bot-like in how they repeat themselves. That is the NPC frame. In the show's terms, non-player characters are not just other people with bad opinions; they are people whose responses seem scripted, automated, and cut off from real autonomy. The self-exam comes next. The uncomfortable move is that the episode keeps circling back to our own lack of autonomy, because the question is not whether other people are scripted, but where our own scripts come from. Brains are overloaded. The episode reminds you that the mind has to process an enormous amount of information, so it depends on shortcuts, filters, and habits just to get through the day. Those shortcuts matter. Once a shortcut gets reinforced by identity, repetition, or a preferred media diet, it can start to feel like independent thought even when it is mostly a polished reflex. Conformity gets one lane. The show looks at people who mostly stay inside the accepted script, then at people who turn contrarian after getting jaded, and it treats both as ways of outsourcing judgment. Contrarianism gets another. That second path can slide into conspiracy thinking, because the more evidence someone wants to find for suspicion, the easier it becomes to build a story that seems to justify almost anything. The examples get pointed. The episode uses modern culture, politics, health debates, and media personalities as illustrations of how people can move from curiosity into rigidity, and from rigidity into a kind of performative certainty. The host keeps the tone conversational. Instead of sounding clinical, the delivery uses everyday irritations, quick jokes, and long explanatory turns to connect how the brain works to ordinary life. The target is self-awareness. By the end, the show argues that independence is not thinking deeply about everything, but choosing carefully what deserves deep thought in a world full of endless noise. The closing note is practical. It asks listeners to notice where certainty is doing too much work and where a feed may be steering the mind more than it seems.

As heard by us

A brisk, opinionated look at how scripts, media habits, and certainty shape thinking.

The episode looks at how online culture nudges people toward borrowed certainty, then turns the point back on everyday media habits. Using the NPC idea as its frame, it moves from familiar outrage and recycled phrases to a plain question: how much of what passes for independent…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Catch how default thinking turns people into scripts you did not know you were writing.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Growth Mindset Psychology: The Science of Self-Improvement