A blog about human brains and behavior for students of psychology.
Psychologists that research people’s “chronotypes,” or their propensities to go to bed at different times, have found that early and late risers tend to differ in a variety of ways. In many cases, the findings haven’t exactly been good news
Boredom is an emotion that can be as much about what you aren’t doing as what you are. We tend to think that the less we do, the more bored we get. But a new study published in the journal
We all know that nothing good comes from cutting sleep out of your life. First, there are the cognitive effects. Sleep deprivation influences people’s performance in ways similar to alcohol consumption, which is what makes drowsy driving similarly dangerous to
Sometimes our perceptions of others tell us more about ourselves. That can be true in how we interpret other people’s motivations, for example, and a newly published study suggests it can even be true in how we read people’s facial
Working memory is a type of memory that, well, does a lot of work. It’s the type of memory you use when you’re doing a task and you need to keep relevant information in your mind. Needing to keep information
Forgive and forget? Easier said than done, but also easier to do if you have high levels of self-control, it turns out. Previous psychology studies have repeatedly pointed to a link between people’s levels of self-control and their capacity for
You might suspect that people who engage in callous or manipulative behavior would tend to be emotionally colder. Intuitively, that could even be a plausible explanation as to why those individuals would be more likely to treat others poorly. A
There’s no formula for happiness, but something that apparently helps is not being too judgmental toward your own thoughts and feelings. A recent study from researchers in Spain highlights the role that this kind of acceptance plays in overall happiness.
Our traditional ideas about how people are “supposed” express emotions are often tied up with gender stereotypes. Since managing emotions is a key part of mental health for anyone of any gender, viewing emotions in terms of gender has consequences
The idea that drugs can be an escape from negative emotions is well known. A recently published study from researchers at Harvard University gives us some more evidence for that idea, but adds a new twist. As it turns out,
