Read about and understand the various psychological phenomena you observe in your day-to-day life. Get answers to common curiosities about everyday behavior. Understanding the root causes of your behaviors and those of others will greatly improve your understanding of human psychology. No human behavior, however small, is insignificant.
Stockholm Syndrome is an intriguing psychological phenomenon in which hostages develop positive feelings for their captors during captivity. It sounds confusing. After all, common sense says that we should hate those who forcibly capture us and threaten us with violence, right? Stockholm Syndrome does not only makes victims like their captors. Some also empathize with …
This article will explore what dissociation means in psychology and then briefly go over the different types of dissociation. Lastly, we’ll touch on the connection between dissociation and trauma. Imagine how people react when tragedy strikes, be it a death in the family, a natural disaster, a terror attack, anything. Let’s take the example of …
You show your friend a music video from your favorite band, hoping they’ll like it as much as you do. After about a minute into the video, your friend blurts out, “Ugh… the singer makes me cringe!” You feel devastated, wronged, and slightly embarrassed. “Is this supposed to be cringe-worthy? I didn’t realize this was …
Joe was a brilliant actor who had been nominated for the best actor award in an award ceremony. He had worked hard and his movie had done very well. When the announcer announced that he was the winner, Joe felt a cocktail of emotions- he was joyous, inexplicably sad, relieved and excited all at the …
This article will explore how groups form and disintegrate in the context of the stages of group development. In Human Resources Management, there’s this 5-stage model of group development that was put forward by Bruce Tuckman. I’ve always been interested in group dynamics and group development and behaviour. I found this model useful in explaining …
Many of our behaviors that seem random are, in fact, dependent on what time of the day it is. Our body can’t function properly without keeping track of time. So how does the body keep track of time? The biological clock A scientist once lived in an underground cave for days to conduct a series …
We like to think that we see the world as it is and that our eyes function very much like video cameras recording all the details in our field of vision. Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is that sometimes we are unable to see objects that are right in front of us. …
This article will focus on the mechanics behind the formation of stereotypes, explaining why people stereotype others and how we can begin to break these stereotypes. Stereotyping means attributing a personality trait or a set of personality traits to a group of people. These traits may either be positive or negative and stereotyping of groups …
Dehumanization means stripping humans off of their human qualities. Dehumanized humans are viewed as less than human by the dehumanizers, no longer having the same worth and dignity that humans normally ascribe to each other. Researchers have identified two types of dehumanizations- animalistic and mechanistic dehumanization.1 In animalistic dehumanization, you deny human attributes in the …
What causes homophobia?Why are some people homophobic?What are the psychological and biological drivers of homophobia? This article will attempt to answer these questions. Homophobia is a pervasive phenomenon that has been known to occur since the dawn of human history. It ranges from having antagonistic attitudes toward homosexuals to engaging in violent acts against them. …