Do the Math: Cognitive Load Attenuates Negative Feelings
keywords:
cognitive load / Mail Goggles / mental resources / negative feelings
Do the Math: Cognitive Load Attenuates Negative Feelings
Last October (2008), a large email provider launched a new application, the so-called mail goggles, that requires people to quickly solve five moderately complex math problems before they are allowed to send out any email. By default, these mail goggles are only active late night on the weekend (which led some people to rename this application ‘Beer Goggles’), but it can be adjusted to any self-chosen time window. The application is meant to withhold people from sending... / more
Free Will in Social Psychology
keywords:
Baumeister / free will / self-regulation / willpower
Free Will in Social Psychology
The topic of free will has challenged thinkers and inspired debate across multiple disciplines for centuries. What can social psychology contribute? Social psychology is unlikely to provide a convincing answer to questions about whether people have free will. However, social psychology can provide considerable information about the inner processes and the control of behavior. To thinkers who believe in free will, social psychology provides vital evidence about how it happens and is used. To thinkers who disbelieve in free will,... / more
The Ghost in the System: Where Free Will Lurks in Human Minds
keywords:
attractor states / dynamical systems / emergence / free will
The Ghost in the System: Where Free Will Lurks in Human Minds
By late January 2002, the FBI had strategically secured what documents remained at Enron’s Houston headquarters following evidence that employees were destroying documents that implicated them in wrong-doing in what was one of the greatest accounting scandals in United States history. Company staff fed reams of papers through shredders, one employee even taking home some of the scrapped documents to use as packing material (CNN, 2002). With the Enron scandal a prominent fixture in the news throughout late 2001... / more
Are You a “Real Man”? How Men Earn and Prove Manhood Status
![By stu_spivack (Jack Katz Memorial Strong Man Competition) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://in-mind.org/sites/default/files/styles/article_image/public/field/image/manhood_stone.jpg?itok=oY_hAmje "By stu_spivack (Jack Katz Memorial Strong Man Competition) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons")
keywords:
gender role violations / gender roles / human sex differences / manhood / physical aggression
Are You a “Real Man”? How Men Earn and Prove Manhood Status
Daily life is replete with examples of men’s anxiety about violating the male gender role. Boyfriends and husbands refuse to watch “chick flicks” in the theatre; pop music enthusiasts keep their fondness for certain performers a secret (“I have lots of male friends who like Adam Lambert, but they don’t want people to think they’re gay”). Why might this be the case? Indeed, men’s tendency to appear “insecure in their manhood” may reflect an interpersonal concern... / more
Positive Psychology and the Importance of Close Relationships in TV Sitcoms: That 70s Show, Entourage, and How I Met Your Mother
keywords:
friendship / motivation / positive psychology / relationships / television
Positive Psychology and the Importance of Close Relationships in TV Sitcoms: That 70s Show, Entourage, and How I Met Your Mother
The positive psychology movement has spurred multiple lines of research devoted to studying how close relationships are beneficial to people’s lives. These relationships seem to provide psychological nourishment, giving people motivation and confidence to branch out, take risks, and live a more optimal life. Some popular sitcoms are used to demonstrate the overlap between dynamics of careers and social bonds, illustrating how relationships and work are not separate, but intertwined. / more
Successful Dieting in Tempting Environments: Mission Impossible?
keywords:
dieting / eating behavior / goal conflict / self-control / temptation
Successful Dieting in Tempting Environments: Mission Impossible?
One of the areas in which temptations often interfere with people’s self-control is the domain of eating and dieting behavior. In the present article, we review research on the psychological processes underlying the failures and successes of chronic dieters in resisting food temptations. A goal conflict model of eating as well as research testing this model is presented to understand the difficulties that dieters... / more
Anger Management
keywords:
Aggression / anger / Catharsis / venting
Anger Management
Anger is an emotional response to a real or imagined threat or provocation. Anger can range in intensity from mild irritation to extreme rage. We all become angry, and most of us don’t like it. The question is how to get rid of anger, or at least reduce it. That is the topic of this article. / more
The antidote: happiness for people who can't stand positive thinking
The antidote: happiness for people who can't stand positive thinking
“It's recently occurred to me I might not even have a problem.” (Andrew Largeman, Garden State) I’m home for Christmas, and starting to get nervous. Soon I will meet my relatives, and with that a bunch of nagging questions will be waiting for me. Questions like “How’s your thesis going?” and “What will you be doing after graduating next summer?” and “What, you still don’t have a plan for the future? Doesn’t that make you feel uncomfortable?” – Well, what... / more
The passions of the mind: a biographic novel of Sigmund Freud
The passions of the mind: a biographic novel of Sigmund Freud
There are probably more misconceptions about Sigmund Freud than any other psychologist, or to be precise, medical doctor. My knowledge about Freud was limited to what I learned in my bachelor program and I felt that it was time to find out more about the founder of psychoanalysis. Therefore, when my PhD endeavor took me to a conference in Vienna, I decided to mix business with pleasure and grabbed Freud’s narrative biography written by Irving Stone. Irving Stone is a... / more
Sex, murder, and the meaning of life
Sex, murder, and the meaning of life
Kenrick has a very nice writing style and is quite self-deprecating in most of the anecdotes he presents. In his book Sex, Murder and the Meaning of Life, Kenrick talks about his years growing up in a tough neighborhood, his priorities in the different times of his life, and finally provides some advice based on his experience. His approach is to explain how and why humans behave in particular ways from an evolutionary psychologist’s perspective. However, this book was not... / more