Category: Psychology

When trying to predict what will make us happy in the future, we naturally rely on beliefs we have acquired with experience. Unfortunately these beliefs about the way our emotions operate are frequently misleading.

Experiments have shown that people have a natural tendency to over-generalise beliefs about their emotions to situations where they don’t apply. Psychologists call these belief biases.

Here are four belief biases that people often display when trying to predict how an event will make them feel in the future:

Continue reading “4 Belief Biases That Can Reduce Pleasure”

Mondays should be depressing. The memory of a fun weekend still fresh in the mind, returning to all the problems left behind on Friday and the endless expanse of time until next weekend. Surely Mondays are the most depressing day of the week?

Continue reading “Mondays Are Not As Depressing As You Think”

Human behaviour towards money can’t solely be explained by its utility, it has a more addictive quality – like a drug.

It’s no surprise that people want money – we’ve all got bills to pay. It’s also no surprise that money is useful – it would be irritating to pay the electricity bill in corn, goats or some other non-monetary quid pro quo. Originally economists argued that the fact that money is so useful explains why we’re interested in it. But when you think about it, the fact that money is so useful doesn’t fully explain people’s behaviour.

Continue reading “Why Money is Part of Human Nature: Money as Both Tool and Drug”

A new virtual reality study finds that 40% of the general population experienced paranoid thoughts during a tube ride. Dr Daniel Freeman at the Institute of Psychiatry in London and colleagues explain that while paranoid thoughts are popularly associated with mental illness, they are actually a normal part of everyday life for many of us.

Continue reading “40% Experienced Paranoid Thoughts on Virtual Journey”

Discover the most accessible and well-written psychology blogs available on the web.

Best historical psychology blog

The Advances in the History of Psychology blog has been going strong for a while now and contains some real gems. Amongst these are a description of the famous Stanley Milgram obedience experiments by someone who resisted and videos of B. F. Skinner demonstrating operant conditioning.

Continue reading “Guide to Psychology Blogs – Part 5”

Think our attitudes predict our behaviours? Think we only use 10% of our brains? Think blind people’s other senses are more acute? Think again.

Continue reading “10 Mind-Myths: Do Any of These Catch You Out?”

Take a trip through the science – and experience – of altered states of consciousness in Jeff Warren’s absorbing new book: The Head Trip.

Sleep is one of the most fascinating altered states of consciousness in which we spend a third of our lives. It’s also the area that has the most research findings and it’s where Jeff Warren starts his fascinating journey around what he calls the ‘wheel of consciousness’.

Continue reading “The Head Trip: Adventures on the Wheel of Consciousness by Jeff Warren (Book Review)”

Some top executives are now paid very large one-off bonuses for meeting their performance targets. The theory is that setting and rewarding the attainment of targets increases performance. It’s like tempting the mouse with a piece of cheese. But, do humans really behave like mice?

Continue reading “Do Big Money Bonuses Really Increase Job Performance?”