Posts tagged “psychology”
A study finds that friendliness, honesty, and niceness are now considered cool. So there. (Though I'll admit this doesn't actually prove any of my earlier points.)
Autumn's here, and I can't decide if the cold weather should make me more or less paranoid about people in heavy coats on the tube. The cover it provides cuts both ways.
I'm refreshing CNN at 11pm waiting for the Pope to die, even though I don't care when it happens. I just need the information to exist so I can have it. I'm basically a lab monkey hitting a button for brain chemicals. I should probably go to bed.
Time speeds up as you get older because your brain stores memories as deltas -- differences from what you've seen before. New experiences slow perceived time; familiar ones compress it. Want life to slow down? Do something genuinely new.
DisorderRatingParanoid:LowSchizoid:ModerateSchizotypal:HighAntisocial:HighBorderline:LowHistrionic:HighNarcissistic:Very HighAvoidant:LowDependent:LowObsessive-Compulsive:Moderate-- Personality Disorder Test - Take It! -- I'm sure no one will be surprised to learn that I "seek attention and praise" and am "self-centered". It gets quite close to the bone though: They tend to be choosy about picking friends, since they believe that not just anyone is worthy of being their friend. They tend to make good first impressions, yet have difficulty maintaining long-lasting relationships. They are generally uninterested in the feelings of others and may take advantage of them. Whoops! I didn't realise that was a common psychosis. Likewise, the schizoidal stuff sounds like me: They sometimes believe to have extra sensory ability or that unrelated events relate to them in some important way. They generally engage in eccentric behavior and have difficulty concentrating for long periods of time. Their speech...
Took a left brain/right brain test and it nailed me: overly methodical, paralyzed by options, constantly trying to categorize everything. Apparently I'm best suited to be a scientist or design consultant. Now if only it told me how to actually fix these tendencies.
Slate's piece on the economics of suicide is full of wild stats: 3% of Americans have attempted suicide, there are 1700+ attempts daily, and failed attempts correlate with a 20% income boost. Genuinely bizarre stuff worth reading.
We're more like panicking mice than we'd like to admit. Wider doors cause jams, narrow ones create orderly queues, and clustered exits block each other. Turns out human evacuation behavior is far less rational than we imagine.
TV has replaced real human interaction as our emotional role model, training us to respond to situations the way American scriptwriters think we should. The result is hollow "sitcom moments" where we suppress natural reactions. Christmas used to be a gloriously hypocritical mess. Now everyone just tries to be nice and hates it.
Tired but amused by a surprisingly accurate one-click personality test. Yes, I've taken dozens of these. Yes, I know what that says about me.
