A blog about human brains and behavior for students of psychology.
Breaking news, this just in! According to reports we’re getting, uh, it seems that the news might be messing with your mental health. And by reports, I mean a study just published in the British Journal of Psychology. The study,
Our mental health is often tied up in how we see the relationship between the past, present and future. For that reason, how we tell our life stories can say something about our psychological state. A couple years ago, for
The internet has given psychologists new opportunities to study subtle differences in the way people use language, and whether those differences can predict which people are most at risk for mental health conditions. Last year, for example, researchers found that
Last week, the ugly and absurd side of the United States’ college admissions process burst into public view. Charges were filed against 50 people from wealthy families across the countries, who were accused of paying hundreds of thousands or even
Millennials get accused of all sorts of things. Narcissism is a common one. That idea fell apart when scientists took a closer look at it. But here’s a charge that might stick: perfectionism. It turns out that levels of perfectionism
For the progress we’ve made in mental health awareness, there’s still plenty of stigma lingering around. Stigma can be overt, such as in believing that people with mental health conditions are dangerous or should be separated from society. It can
It’s easy enough to say that the key to happiness is being able to focus on the good things in life. But how to actually do that? There may not be a simple answer, but researchers from Harvard Medical School
You walk into a crowded cafe. There are two empty seats. Which one do you choose? There are a surprising number of psychological considerations that can go into this choice. If you’re like me, you’re probably going to choose the
If you expect that the future holds good things, you might be right. It’s a common idea that optimism can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and psychology research has tended to back up a link between positive expectations and positive outcomes.
We each strike a different balance between following our impulses and second-guessing them. The amount of self-control we have can factor into how well we do in school, or how likely we are to develop addictive behaviors. For this reason,
