Description: Try this statement on for size. The way we think, the way we focus our attention, the way we organize and reflect upon our thoughts are, in large part, best thought of as adaptations to the world we are living in (the physical AND the social world). Does that make sense? OK, now, how… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Motivation-Emotion
Video Games, Social Media and Mental Health: Research Debates on Screen Time Continue
Description: The debates and the research focused upon the impacts of video gaming and social media use on developing children and youth are heated and ongoing. The primary difficulty in sorting out the effects of video gaming and social media use is tied up in the comprehensive nature of their uptake in the population. As… Read more »
Psychology of Covid: Hitting the Pandemic Wall
Description: Have you heard of something called the General Adaptation system (GAS)? Hans Selye (1907-1982) working at McGill University in Montreal was trying to find a model with which he could use rats to study the impact of longer-term exposure to moderate to high levels of stress. What he came up with as a rat… Read more »
Psychology of Covid: Reasoning with Unreasonable People About Vaccination
Description: How do you deal with someone who you believe is completely unreasonable? Well, one possible answer that makes a lot of sense is simply to not deal with them at all. Who needs the stress and the headaches associated with trying to take on an unreasonable person and try to get them to BE… Read more »
Happy Without a Valentine
Description: Remember how sad Charlie Brown was when he did not get a single Valentine? The social norms of romantic love are burning brightly at the center of all that is involved in Valentine’s Day. Today (well tomorrow actually) having a Valentine is more difficult unless they are already holed up with you in whatever… Read more »
Investigator Lies and False Confessions: A Deeper Look
Description: Sometimes an individual who has confessed to a crime recants or withdraws their confession. What comes to mind when you read that sentence? Knowing nothing else about an individual case, what would you estimate is the likelihood that the person recanting a confession is actually guilty of what they origin ally confessed to? Now… Read more »
A Check on Positivity: Sometimes Grumpy is Good
Description: How important and how valuable in terms of long-term wellbeing are mindfulness and positivity? Well, if you have been paying just half-attention to well-ness buzz in the media in recent years you will probably say that positivity and mindfulness are two of the corner stones of success and wellbeing. I don’t really want to… Read more »
Psychology of COVID-19: Suicide
Description: When we look back on the year or two (or whatever it finally turns out to be) of the Covid-19 pandemic what do you think we will find happened to the suicide rate during the pandemic? If the rate increased significantly why might that have occurred? What factors were (are) involved? The study of… 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 »
Emerging Adults and Parents’ Levels of Psychological Control
Description: There has been quite a bit of speculation about what is “wrong” with emerging adults (18- to 29-year-olds) these days. This typically occurs as part of reflections upon the significant rise (jump) in levels of anxiety among undergraduate student in general and first year students in particular. Putting aside non-useful hypotheses such as that… Read more »
Books for Success!
