Posts by Neil Petersen
An Intervention for Perfectionism
I’ve written about perfectionism several times on here before, and to be honest, I’ve never really said anything nice about it. As I’ve pointed out, perfectionism has been implicated in everything from insomnia to binge eating to lower resilience. Basically, the need to be perfect is not a tendency that seems to bode well for…
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How Your Day Was Yesterday Can Predict How Your Brain Will Age
That’s right! When you woke up yesterday I bet you didn’t know your cognitive future hinged on whether you’d have a good day! I’m exaggerating, of course. But there really is a new study out showing that people’s evaluations of their previous days can predict cognitive aging over the next year. Before you freak out…
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Social Media Might Kind of Affect Life Satisfaction in Teens
Maybe you’ve heard that social media usage is linked to lower life satisfaction. But what does that mean? There are multiple ways social media and life satisfaction could be “linked”: People with higher life satisfaction use social media less than people with lower life satisfaction People tend to use social media more when they become…
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6 Types of Shoplifters
Shoplifting is a behavior that, besides being ethically questionable, doesn’t seem like a very good risk-reward trade-off. Naturally, when psychologists see people engaged in that kind of activity, they ask: why? As it turns out, not everyone who shoplifts does so for the same reasons. A new study from researchers at University of Texas and…
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What’s Behind the Mona Lisa’s Crooked Smile?
For centuries, people have puzzled over the Mona Lisa’s enigmatic expression. In recent years, psychology researchers have joined in with their own theories, even debating fundamental questions such as whether Mona Lisa’s facial expression indicates happiness or sadness. The latest contribution to the “Mona Lisa studies” branch of psychology comes from a paper titled Unraveling…
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Genes May Contribute to Sense of Fairness
Do you have a strong, automatic reaction when you encounter a situation that’s unfair? Everyone has a sense of what’s fair and what’s not, but that sense seems to be more pronounced in some people than others. And a new study suggests one possible reason: genes. In the study, researchers in China ran an experiment…
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Too Much Sitting at School Leads to Attention Lapses
There are as many parenting philosophies as there are parents, but one thing most parents probably agree on is that it’s good for kids to stay active. Running around outside beats hours parked in front of the TV any day. Perhaps unsurprisingly, research has consistently found that children who are more physically active also tend…
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What Do Internet Addiction and Smoking Have in Common?
No, that question isn’t the beginning of a bad joke. But it could be the beginning of a psychology study. In fact, a team of researchers in China recently did take it as the starting point for a study. In attempting to answer the question, they honed in on one factor that has previously been…
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Psychedelic Encounters With “Higher Powers” Have Lasting Spiritual Effects
When someone says they’re “ready to meet their maker,” they don’t usually mean they’re about to drop acid, but encounters with “higher powers” are in fact a common effect of psychedelic drugs. A new study shows the extent to which these encounters can lead to lasting spiritual and psychological changes. The study is the result…
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Experts Rate Harmful Sleep Myths
Sleeping is one of the most mysterious things that people do. As a result, there’s plenty of mythology and folklore around what happens when we sleep. If our everyday, non-expert understanding of how sleep works sometimes contradicts what the science says, does that potentially lead us into sleep routines that are bad for our health?…
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