Description: Is it accurate? Does it plagiarize? Does it lie? Is it dangerous? Can people use t to cheat? Is it alive? Is it sentient? Is it human? Based on these questions, what am I thinking and writing about? I am thinking about ChatGPT and other “bots” that answer questions and write essays in response… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Social Influence
Temperament: The Start of the Social/Emotional You
Description: Consider this quote from John Watson, one of the founders of Behaviorism: “Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select — doctor, lawyer, artist,… Read more »
Digital Fentanyl? Hmmmm….
Description: You cannot have missed the increasing level of discussion and concern regarding the possible impacts of social media use on the mental health of teens and youth in recent years. The available new coverage of this topic ranges widely from articles that seek out and dive into recent, population level research on social media… Read more »
Life and Health Are Collective Endeavors
Description: I was not intending to post three conceptually focused pieces (another one, a third one) when I sat down at my computer this week. By conceptual, I mean looking at articles that ask us if we are looking at or thinking about some aspect of human psychological functioning properly or whether a different conceptual… Read more »
Our Minds On Cryptocurreny
Description: I will freely admit that I am completely unable to understand (and frankly not very interested in) crypto currency. That said, I AM rather interested in how it was that so many people got deeply into things like FTX (Google it and Ponzi schemes). There is a lot of talk from the perspective of… Read more »
Looking Beyond Political Affiliation to Predict Engagement With Conspiracy Theories
Description: Maybe you are not interested in having another look at the question of why it might be that some people are more receptive to the conspiracy theories proffered by the QAnon bunch but, despite their seeming aversion to it, science can help us understand them a bit better. So, take a moment and consider… Read more »
Introverts and the Holiday Season: Who Has Work to Do?
Description: Of course the holiday period in late December is supposed to be a time away from work and engaged in other activities such as spending time with loved ones, friends and family. This does NOT mean that it is a time to be away from Psychology (in fact maybe just the opposite)! It can,… Read more »
The Myth of Holiday Suicides
Description: Be honest, have you heard or think you heard from somewhere or someone that suicide rates jump up during the holiday season? It seems to make sense doesn’t it that people at risk for suicide might be more at risk during the time a year that focusses upon things like family connections (good or… Read more »
Big Picture on Child Abuse: Risk and Protective Factors
Description: Imagine, just for a moment, that we have just now decided to take seriously and to do something about physical child abuse. With any ‘from scratch’ effort to design an intervention a first step is to see what you can find out about both risk and protective factors in relation to whatever it is… Read more »
Psychology of Gift-Giving: Do Better With Science!
Description: Think for a moment about what a Psychology of gift-giving might involve and include. No, there is no Psychology of Gift-Giving research journal but there has been a fair bit of relevant thought and research directed towards gift-giving. What might it involve? Perhaps questions like, what makes for a good (appreciated) gift? or what… Read more »
Books for Success!
