Why We Justify Big Events With Big Causes: Balancing causes with effects is an error
When something big happens, did something big cause it? Did the cause of a pandemic have to be a big event? Did a typo in …
Cognitive Distortions: 11 Deep Errors in Thinking
All of our perceptions may be biased & inaccurate. Our brains evolved in a very different context for hundreds of thousands of years. Evolution made …
What’s the best way to learn anything? Tips from science.
Aren’t we lucky that our brain is readily capable of learning new things, even though we may not have the motivation? We grow about 700 …
Infinite Benefits of Mindfulness: Panacea for Cognition & Life?
There is a lot of talk about the benefits of mindfulness and mindfulness meditation. It’s almost common knowledge that mindfulness can positively affect our emotions …
Who appears intelligent? Why are some of them childish?
There is a general stereotype that intelligent or super-intelligent people are childish or immature. Why is that? Apart from the fact that some people appear …
Kids reason that Caged Animals are Owned but Free ones aren’t
Summary: A new study argues that children reason if an animal is owned or not based on how much control the owner has on the …
The psychology of Humor or “how to kill a joke 101”
Are you the humorous one in your social group? Do you try to be funny? I know I try. But let’s be honest, those puns …
Sense-Making: How We Make Sense Of The World & Find Meaning
We seek meaning. We seek certainty. We seek explanations. Meeseeks purpose. People want to make sense of the world on almost every level of experience. …
Self-construals in social psychology: Finding the self in society
An interesting theory in psychology called the self-construal theory describes how we place ourselves in society. The self as a concept is quite vague, and …
Cognition 101: Executive functions, Cognitive processes & abilities
What is cognition? Cognition refers to all mental processes that lead to thoughts, knowledge, and awareness. The underlying mechanisms are called cognitive processes. They govern …
Do Universal Words Exist? From evolution to cognates & iconicity
With a loose definition of the word universal, a number of words from many languages are almost universally understood. We learn many words across multiple …
How To Use The Brain to improve Life, Skills, Expertise & Thinking
In this round-up article, I’m going to highlight only the key insights from psychology that will help you use your brain at its highest potential …
Spontaneous cognition (mind-wandering): How random thoughts and daydreams emerge from the brain
Why do random thoughts pop into the mind? Why does the mind wander? Why do we daydream? Why do we get random creative or depressive …
Women typically do mental tasks better in warm rooms: Heat affects cognition and equality
Women perform better on math and verbal tests at higher temperatures while men perform better at lower temperatures, according to a laboratory study on German …
Musical Earworms: Why songs stick in the head & how to dispel them
Earworms are those bits of songs that crawl through your mind and find a home in the middle of nowhere and everywhere. You know you …
The Kawaii Effect: Cute things make us careful, focus our attention & motivate Kama Muta
Many of us like to look at cute images and videos on the internet – our mood improves. Instagram is purrfect for that. Turns out, …