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 Tagged: Psychology of Covid
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: 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 »
Access to Therapy: Are AI-Chatbots Part of the Solution?
Description: Consider this premise. These days (in what we hope is the latter parts of the COVID-19 pandemic) there are troublingly high rates of loneliness, anxiety, depression and other mental health challenges among the general population. Therapy is hard to access both due to isolation and to its not being routinely covered as health care… Read more »
The Psychology of Covid: Being A Guinea Pig
Description: If I asked you to ponder what it is like to be a Guinea Pig, I suspect you would not actually start to reflect on what it might be like to be small and furry. Rather, you would be more likely to contemplate what is would be like to be a participant in a… Read more »
Psychology of COVID-19: Stress and Vaccine Efficacy
Description: If you have taken an introductory Psychology course that included a section on stress you may be aware that ongoing stress can have a negative impact upon your immune system. Those with sustained moderate to high levels of stress are at increased risk for things ranging from colds to cancer as a result of… 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: Contact Tracing and Human Memory
Description: Think back over the past 10 days and then itemize everything you did, everywhere you went, everyone you saw, interacted with, for how long and how far apart were you during that interaction? Include every place or situation you encountered over that same period that involved groups of people. How many people? How close… 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 »