Posts by Neil Petersen
Why Flipping a Coin Is a Good Way to Decide
Can’t make up your mind? Here’s a simple trick. Flip a coin to decide. And if you don’t like the outcome of the coin flip, well, sounds like you’ve made up your mind! A recent study from researchers in Switzerland looks at how flipping a coin can help with making a tough decision. The researchers…
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Optimism and Life Satisfaction Go Together in Schizophrenia
Psychologists have been optimistic about the power of optimism, and a new study provides more evidence consistent with the idea that optimism might have far-reaching mental health effects. In the study, researchers in Korea found that adults with schizophrenia tended to have higher life satisfaction when they had higher levels of optimism. It may be,…
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People Can Detect Envy, but Only in Other People They Know
Ever get the feeling that other people become jealous when something good happens to you? It’s exceptionally hard to know or sure, because most people aren’t open about being envious. As far as the seven deadly sins go, envy is one that can be very quiet. Most people conceal any feelings of envy that arise,…
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Would You Rather Be Replaced at Work by Another Human or a Robot?
That’s a bleak choice, and it’s exactly the choice researchers in Germany and the Netherlands gave people in a recent study on the psychology of job replacement. OK, the researchers didn’t actually remove people from their jobs for the sake of science. That would be taking it a little far. But they did ask people…
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Anticipating Future Nostalgia
We’ve all had the experience of looking back and feeling nostalgic about a particular time in our lives. A slightly more complicated feeling is looking forward to the future to imagine how we’ll one day look back on the present with nostalgia. Psychologists call this experience anticipated nostalgia. Another way to describe it, as in…
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A Gallery of Psychologically Soothing Images
Some pictures have the power to evoke a sense of peace and relaxation in us. Seeking out that feeling is what’s behind Project Soothe, in which psychology researchers at University of Edinburgh are compiling a database of soothing pictures. The researchers have been accepting soothing images from the general public, then adding those images to…
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Chocolate vs. Depression
Good news for chocolate lovers: there’s more evidence out that chocolate can be part of a (mentally) healthy diet. Previous research has suggested that chocolate might be associated with lower risk of depression. So a recent study decided to examine that possibility more closely in a large pool of adults chosen to be representative of…
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A 20-Minute Procedure Can Change People’s Everyday Risk Preferences
One of the interesting findings in recent psychology research is that relatively simple procedures can temporarily alter people’s brain activity and behaviors. A recent study demonstrated this in terms of people’s propensity for risky actions. The researchers who ran the study used a technique known as transcranial direct-current stimulation, or more conveniently tDCS. This involves…
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Who Plans to Retire Early?
Given the option to retire, people will make different decisions about how long to keep working. In order to learn more about how people make retirement decisions, a recent study decided to focus on those who are most eager to close out their careers: adults over 50 who intend to retire before reaching the official…
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Distinguishing Narcissism and Self-Esteem
Everyone wants to feel good about themselves. But when does feeling good about yourself cross the line into feeling better than other people? There are different ways of thinking about the difference between narcissism and high-self esteem. We can say that self-esteem is about valuing yourself while narcissism is about feeling superior. Or that self-esteem…
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