A blog about human brains and behavior for students of psychology.
You might have a certain picture of what a “millennial” looks like. Plugged into social media, snapping selfies, entitled, self-absorbed. In short, narcissistic. The narcissistic millennial is a trope that many journalists have taken and run with. For example, one
Let’s talk about creativity, man. In 2012, residents of Washington state voted to make recreational marijuana illegal. This year, researchers from Washington State University published a study aiming to clarify the relationship between marijuana and creativity. Is there a connection
Terrorist attacks perpetrated by people acting alone come seemingly out of nowhere, but they have the potential to cause devastating loss. Recently, a group of researchers from the Netherlands and the United Kingdom analyzed 55 cases of terrorist attacks committed
One of the most important things people learn in college may be … how to learn. It’s hard to learn anything, obviously, if you don’t know how to learn. OK, I’m simplifying things a bit. Everyone knows how to learn
It looks like we may be able to add a less extreme stress response to the list of benefits associated with physical activity. A new study published in the journal Anxiety, Stress and Coping suggests that exercise may take some
People generally aren’t slow to form first impressions of each other. In fact, it turns out we jump to all sorts of conclusions based only on how someone says “hello.” Trustworthiness is one character trait people are ready to assess
People who are experiencing depression have more trouble self-regulating as well as exerting control over their own thoughts and actions. It’s possible, then, that honing peoples self-control could reduce their depressive symptoms. That idea was the starting point for a
The human brain is amazingly plastic. It adapts when we learn new skills – and sometimes, when we stop using and forget old ones. Recently, a group of researchers from Germany and Canada did a study looking at how much
If you want to listen to some music, you have plenty of options for how to do it: alone or with others, live or on a recording. And as it turns out, all these ways of listening to music are
Grandiose narcissism isn’t so hard to spot – just give a grandiose narcissist enough time, and they’ll probably make it clear that they think they’re pretty great. Vulnerable narcissism is a little more subtle. People who score high on this
