Have you ever learned about a new word, fact, idea or product and subsequently see it everywhere around you? This curious cognitive effect is known as the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. So, is it just a coincidence? Or is there a scientific explanation behind this phenomenon? In this post, we take a…
When something goes wrong in your life, do you tend to blame yourself or someone else? Psychologists call this type of ‘blaming’ or ‘attribution of success or failure’ our Internal and External Locus of Control. Sounds complicated, right? Well, it’s not, and it can affect how happy your life is.…
Projective identification is a complex psychological phenomenon that can be used as a defense mechanism and as a tool of interpersonal communication. In this post, we will explore how this theory is defined and consider some examples of how it works in everyday life. What is projection? To understand projective…
Some people just seem to sail through life, don’t they? They face problems with determination, successes with humility, and are just all-around likeable, smart and decent folk. Perhaps they are using psychological skills that we don’t know about? There are certainly lots of life hacks that people use in order…
We all like to think we are in control of our decisions, but these are often influenced by many factors around us, leading our thought processes in one direction. What is distinction bias? Distinction bias is the influence of making a choice when presented with two similar options side by…
We speak, sometimes without even paying close attention to the words we say. Our words are sometimes babbling, and not really any form of instruction or description at all. After viewing a TED talk about language, I started to look differently at the way I formed my words. Lera Boroditsky…
The mere exposure effect can guide our preferences without us even realizing. In a year, you may like something you hate right now. Have you ever wondered why your preferences change as you get older? Maybe you hated olives and now you love them. Maybe you and your best friend…
The slippery slope argument is frequently used in a variety of contexts from our own internal reasoning to political propaganda. It takes the view that a certain action will lead to a specific chain of events, usually resulting in a negative outcome. But how helpful is this argument and why…
