The Chatelaine Q&A: Journalist Tom Vanderbilt on hate-watching the Kardashians, dating preferences and what we think we know about ourselves.

Tom Vanderbilt on the science of personal taste

Tom Vanderbilt talks to Chatelaine about what explains your personal preferences.

From food to dating — there's a science behind all your choices

a:1:{i:0;s:1072:"When we insist that there’s no accounting for taste, we tend to be referring to other people’s choices — they’re the ones whose blazers are too loud, whose partners are too humourless, whose Spotify playlists lean too heavily toward boy bands. Yet we’re disinclined to subject our own preferences to the same scrutiny. We don’t spend a lot of time untangling the intricate web of cultural contexts, psychological biases and neurological mechanisms that determine what we like, even if we can take that stuff very, very seriously. (Fact: No Ann Landers column generated more responses than her take on the right way to hang a toilet paper roll. That’s likely because she opted for “under,” which is obviously wrong.) 
In You May Also Like: Taste in an Age of Endless Choice, journalist Tom Vanderbilt investigates the science behind personal taste. He speaks to doctors, critics and cat breeders; he examines social networks, Netflix algorithms and baby-name trends, all to plot the coordinates on what he calls “our internal compass of liking.” ";}

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Q&amp;A

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