Writings
Select writings by Tess Wilkinson-Ryan
‘Wait, am I the fool here?’: why our fears of being scammed are corrosive and damaging
The Guardian | July 27, 2023
By Tess Wilkinson-Ryan
Is our tendency to expect the worst of people preventing us from supporting those who really need help?
In 2007, three experimental psychologists, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, coined the word ‘sugrophobia’, which would translate to something like a ‘fear of sucking’. The researchers – Kathleen Vohs, Roy Baumeister and Jason Chin – were looking to name the familiar and specific dread that people experience when they get the inkling that they’re ‘being a sucker’ – that someone is taking advantage of them, partly thanks to their own decisions. The idea that psychologists would study suckers academically seems almost ridiculous at first. But, once you start to look for it, it becomes clear that sugrophobia is not only real, it is a veritable epidemic. Its influence extends from the choices we make as individuals to the society-wide narratives that sow distrust and discrimination.
America’s Mothers Are Suckers. And I Say That With Love.
Slate | May 14, 2023
By Tess Wilkinson-Ryan
Mother’s Day is a celebration that inspires its purported honorees to reflect on the very nature of a consolation prize.
In 1948, Anna Jarvis died in a sanitarium in Pennsylvania after a long and fruitless campaign to excise Mother’s Day from the American calendar. She had in fact founded Mother’s Day herself four decades earlier, even convincing President Woodrow Wilson to officially proclaim a national observance on the second Sunday of every May. Soon after that success, a dismayed Jarvis began to lobby against what she saw as the deep betrayal of commercialization. “The telegraph companies with their ready-made greetings, the florists with their high-pressure campaigns and the awful prices, and the candy manufacturers and greeting card manufacturers have made a lucrative racket out of my ideas,” she complained, furious that Americans were placating their mothers with chocolates instead of respect.
Why Student Loan Forgiveness Makes People Boiling Mad. Nobody wants to get played for a sucker.
Slate | March 9, 2023
By Tess Wilkinson-Ryan
The Supreme Court is expected to focus its decision in Biden v. Nebraska, the student loan forgiveness challenge, on the “major questions doctrine,” a contested and somewhat obscure rule that the court has recently embraced to limit the authority of executive agencies. But last week, the oral arguments in the case strayed into more familiar territory. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar was arguing for the Department of Justice on behalf of the president’s plan when Justice Neil Gorsuch started pressing her on whether student loan forgiveness is just unfair. Gorsuch suggested that the government’s argument had overlooked the “costs to other persons in terms of fairness, for example, people who have paid their loans, people who [plan] their lives around not seeking loans.”
Opinion: Valentine’s Day is for fools. Which is exactly as it should be.
The Washington Post | February 13, 2023
By Tess Wilkinson-Ryan
Most people really (really, really) don’t want to feel like suckers. But Valentine’s Day is different. More so even than April 1, Feb. 14 is for suckers.
Why We Hate Being Scammed
Time Magazine | February 6, 2023
By Tess Wilkinson-Ryan
It sucks to be a sucker. Think about how many sayings we toss around that all mean that very thing: “Don’t take any wooden nickels!” “A fool and his money are soon parted.” “If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.” “There’s one born every minute.”
The message is clear (don’t let that be you!), but it’s hard advice to follow; reality can feel like a relentless gauntlet of proto-frauds and fool’s games—at home, at work, and in the news. Is crypto for chumps? Are remote workers freeloading? Is student debt forgiveness compassionate, or sensible, or a slap in the face to the suckers who already paid theirs off?
Willpower Is Not Going to Be Enough
The pandemic has stripped education of its social context, and schools aren’t reckoning with the psychological tax on students.
The Atlantic | September 2, 2020
By Tess Wilkinson-Ryan
College students are being invited back onto campus after a summer of isolation and confinement, with strict instructions to stay apart. School officials, pleading with students to treat their new autonomy gingerly, are leaning hard on shame to get compliance. The president of Penn State recently admonished students, “Do you want to be the person responsible for sending everyone home?”
Our Minds Aren’t Equipped for This Kind of Reopening
As states ease restrictions on businesses, individuals face a psychological morass.
The Atlantic | July 6, 2020
By Tess Wilkinson-Ryan
Reopening is a mess. Photographs of crowds jostling outside bars, patrons returning to casinos, and a tightly packed, largely maskless audience listening to President Donald Trump’s speech at Mount Rushmore all show the U.S. careening back to pre-coronavirus norms. Meanwhile, those of us watching at home are like the audience of a horror movie, yelling “Get out of there!” at our screens. As despair rises, the temptation to shame people who fail at social distancing becomes difficult to resist.
Hush Contracts Corrupt Everyone Who Signs Them
Nondisclosure agreements silence sexual-harassment victims and White House employees alike. The law shouldn’t allow these deals.
The Atlantic | November 9, 2019
By Tess Wilkinson-Ryan and David A. Hoffman
One of the most haunting scenes in Ronan Farrow’s book Catch and Kill arises from an interview with the former NBC News producer who accused the Today host Matt Lauer of rape. Having finally recounted a devastating tale for the record, she responds to a series of questions about the network with a rote refrain: “I am obliged to tell you that I cannot disparage Andy Lack, or Noah Oppenheim, or any other employee of NBC News.” Her freedom to describe her own life is circumscribed by the nondisclosure agreement she had to sign as a condition of a settlement.