Psychological research on cognitive fluency shows why easy to understand = more profitable, more pleasurable, more intelligent and safer.
Which of these would you say sounds like the more dangerous food additive: Hnegripitrom or Magnalroxate?
Continue reading “8 Studies Demonstrating the Power of Simplicity”
PsyBlog is now on Facebook, you might like to add yourself as a fan.
If you’re so inclined, you might like to add yourself as a fan. You might also feel a sudden burst of generosity towards me and spread the word about PsyBlog to your friends on Facebook.
A wealth of psychological insights from ten more key social psychology studies.
Over the last 7 months I’ve been exploring 10 more of my favourite social psychology studies, each with an insightful story to tell about how our minds work. This follows on from an article I wrote two years ago (10 brilliant social psychology studies).
Key insights from each study are below but click through to get the full story of each experiment.
Image credit: Ayres no graces
The stories we weave about our mental processes are logically appealing but fatally flawed more often than we’d like to think.
We all have intuitive theories about how our own and other people’s minds work. Unfortunately psychological research demonstrates that these theories are often wrong. The gulf between how we think our minds work and how they actually work is sometimes so huge it’s laughable.
Continue reading “Our Minds Are Black Boxes – Even to Ourselves”
Classic social psychology study explores our yearning to bask in the reflected glory of successful others.
Here in England we have a strange tradition called ‘test cricket’. It’s a ridiculous game that goes on for five days, stops for tea and bad light, has impenetrable rules, weird names for fielding positions like ‘silly-mid-on’ and ‘short-backward-leg’ and which frequently ends, after the aforementioned five days, with neither side victorious.
Why we overestimate the power of our own vote.
It might seem like an undemocratic question but it’s one that’s always plagued me: why do I bother voting? Most people know their own tick in the box is hardly worth it when weighed against the effort involved in getting registered and actually going to vote, let alone when weighed against all the other people voting.
PsyBlog is now on Twitter, right here.
PsyBlog is now on Twitter, right here.
So many people have kindly been sharing articles from PsyBlog with others on Twitter that the tweet count for recent articles is now fairly hefty. Thanks very much to all the Twitterers who’ve been spreading the word!
New study finds slouchers make less confident self-evaluations.
At school all the cool kids were slouchers. No one wanted to be seen sitting up straight, paying attention or, heaven forbid making an effort to learn. It was only the geeks in the front row, hoovering up all that useless knowledge, who kept their backs straight. The rest were doing their best to reach the horizontal, and sometimes exceeding it.
Some of the best writing about psychology from blogs.
Some of the best writing about psychology from blogs.
Forty of the best psychology blogs, chosen to give you a broad sweep of the most interesting content being produced online right now.
The list is split into three sections: first are more general psychological blogs, followed by those with an academic slant, followed by condition specific and patient perspective blogs.
Other than that the blogs are presented in no particular order.
Update Sept 2021: most of the blogs below are now sadly inactive, except for the blog you are currently reading PsyBlog.
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We are so sensitive to what things are called that our performance may be marred by something as seemingly insignificant as our own initials.
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.” ~Romeo and Juliet
In these lines from Shakespeare’s famous play, Juliet is trying to persuade Romeo that the bitter feud between their respective families doesn’t matter, that he and his surname are easily divisible, and so they can be together.
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