Description: A group of high school students in the same class all start to show similar symptoms or anxiety and nausea. The school they attend is temporarily closed and a search is undertaken for pollutants or contaminants that could have caused the reported symptoms. None are found though over the week the school is closed… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Cultural Variation
Does More Free Time = More Happiness?
Description: Quickly think of an answer to this question: “would more free time make you happier?” What do you think? If you thought, “it depends” then lay out what you think it might depend upon. Once you have your hypotheses in order consider this observation consistently offered by researchers looking at human happiness that humans… Read more »
Psychology of Covid: Vaccine Skepticism -Its NOT a Knowledge Issue
Description: As the Covid vaccines roll out we general conversation is shifting from when vaccines will be generally available to when will we have enough people vaccinated that we close in on what seems like the almost mythical herd immunity. One of the topics of this more recent line of discussion within the media concerns… Read more »
Psychology of Covid: Our Sense of Smell Gets a New Look
Description: Quickly consider and respond to this question. Of all your senses, which is the most important to you and which is the least important to you? Odd are VERY strong that you put smell at the bottom of the list as your least important and the one you would offer up if you had… Read more »
Psychology of COVID-19: Social Science Explosion
Description: Ok, time to take stock! What kinds of Psychology have people been doing as they try to make sense out of other people’s behaviour in relation to the pandemic over the past few months (or whole year)? There has certainly been a LOT more “Psychologizing” going on involving many things such as failures to… Read more »
Psychology of Covid-19: The Big Picture After
Description: Psychology tends to focus on the experience or behaviors of individual people. While social psychologists DO study people’s behavior in social situations and groups and developmental psychologists examine the effects of early social/relational experiences on later behavior the outcomes examined are those of individuals for the most part. So, if we are to speculate… Read more »
Psychology of Covid-19: Cultural Variation in Reactions to Social Restrictions
Description: We know a LOT about social distancing at this point in time (Fall 2020) don’t we? Well, we might think we do but as we need to consider increasingly comprehensive restrictions on social engagement as the pandemic surges into the winter months it is helpful to see that quite a bit of Psychological research… Read more »
Psychology of Covid: Embrace Winter!
Description: As we head into winter with the Coronavirus reasserting itself, we are asking ourselves, Psychologically, how are we going to get thought the winter? I live in the North and we have a real winter and, I admit, I like to get away from it at least once and for more than a few… Read more »
No More Time Shifting: But Which Time to Pick?
Description: As I write this we are right on top of our semi-annual exercise in time-shifting; we are “falling back” as we move off of daylight savings time and back to standard time, at least assuming you do not live in Saskatchewan or Russia or Morocco or any of the other places that stick with… Read more »
Creeped by Halloween Stuff? It is In Your Genes!
Description: As I write this it is October 31 and thus Halloween in a very different social space and time than previous All Hallows Eves. I am not going to try and make a case for how hard it will be for children to survive without their annua blast of cheap treats (they will be… Read more »
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