Here’s an intriguing animation of psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist talking about the two hemispheres of the brain and summarising the ideas in his book The Master And His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. The video packs a lot into 12 minutes in an accessible way, and will take you beyond the
There’s a wealth of research showing that most people give more attention to threats than opportunities, for example: Negative experiences are remembered in more detail than positive ones Our attitudes are influenced more heavily by bad news than good news (research by John Cacioppo) People feel more negative emotion if they lose $100 than positive
Why do people often get bogged down in trivial decisions? It turns out that our brains use the difficulty encountered in making a decision as a factor in deciding how much more time to spend on it. Researchers Aner Sela and Jonah Berger call this process “decision quicksand”. We expect significant decisions to be difficult
A recent paper reported in the very useful BPS Research Digest blog suggests that people often make a bad impression because they indulge in counter-productive tactics for trying to make themselves look better. The paper, “Impression mismanagement: People as inept self-presenters” by Janina Steinmetz, Ovul Sezer, and Constantine Sedikides, lists four ‘strategies’ that people use
Are people more, or less motivated when they are offered a reward for completing something well? If you’re like most people you will probably have said ‘more’ – but there’s a wealth of research dating back 45 years showing the opposite. In fact, the research shows that while external incentives like cash bonuses or performance
Here’s my personal selection of some podcasts in the general area of understanding how people tick – ranging from neuroscience to management tips. The common denominator is that they all feature interviews, talks or contributions from leading researchers and practitioners – people who know what they are talking about. If you haven’t tried podcasts before,
I came across a useful short article in the New York Times by Alina Tugend summarising research into the effects of ‘bad’ events (setbacks, losses, criticism) versus ‘good’ events (progress, gains, praise): Praise Is Fleeting, but Brickbats We Recall. This is a quick summary of the main points that emerged, plus some thoughts about the implications
Stress is generally thought of as bad for you. But there’s some research by Alia Crum, Peter Salovey, and Shawn Achor that suggests that in some cases it can actually do you good. What makes the difference is not the amount of stress, as previously thought (psychologists used to believe some level of stress is good
One of the best ways of keeping up with the latest thinking in psychology as it relates to management and business is by listening to podcasts. If you’ve got a period in your day when you’ve got time to listen – like commuting to work, or in my case walking the dog, podcasts are an
Or: Why does everyone love Occupy Wall Street when they hated the English rioters? It’s not every day that something useful comes out of an online discussion, but in this case I think something has. During the recent riots in England, most of my Facebook contacts, who I had thought had a fairly liberal political
Psychologists at Washington University report that
the memory function of people in their mid-60s and up is easily swayed by the
power of suggestion, making them more vulnerable to memory-related scams. A
full report appears in the May issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology
(JEP): General, which is published by the American Psychological Association.
For example, an unscrupulous contractor can tell an older customer, “I
told you it would cost [a much higher price than was originally quoted] and
you agreed to pay!” Without a written estimate, the customer is likely
to “remember” it that way, too, and be overcharged. Another scam,
“you forgot to pay me,” also underscores the need for written receipts.
Some con artists even run their own rudimentary memory tests on the elderly,
checking to see if their memory is bad enough to make them good victims.
Get the full story here.
My own experience (of being on the receiving rather than the perpetrating end) suggests that you don’t have to be that old to not always remember clearly what was said – just being preoccupied with something else and not giving something your full attention will do it.
What is consciousness? The best summary I’ve found of where we are up to in understanding this is an article by Susan Blackmore. Susan brings an extra dimension to her understanding – as well as being a psychologist, she is also practises Zen meditation (though she says "I am not a Buddhist", and has experimented with psychedelic drugs.
After discovering her fascinating site, I will definitely be reading her book The Meme Machine
One perspective she doesn’t mention is Ken Wilber’s Four Quadrants model, in which subjective experience is a different, yet linked, realm to the objective world studied by science. In this model, the sense of self is not reducible to the physical functions of the brain (as most researchers into consciousness in the neuroscience field believe) but they are linked. Makes sense to me.
Most of the information about Wilber’s ideas on the web get very complicated and jargonised very quickly – why I’m not sure. The most accessible description of the basic model is here.
