Posts by Neil Petersen
The Best Way to Hit Rock Bottom
Ask someone to tell you their life story and chances are you’ll get a narrative that, like any good story, has high points and low points. It turns out, though, that how people describe their lowest points can tell you about their current mental health. In a recent study, for example, researchers asked over 300…
Read More
Why Do Religious People Report Higher Rates of Porn Addiction?
Pornography addiction is a hot debate (no pun intended!) because it gets at two themes that tend to stir up a lot of moralistic opinions: sex and the growing role of technology in our daily lives. In the media, there has been a rise in the idea that people commonly become addicted to porn in…
Read More
Resilience Links Emotional Intelligence and Stress Management
Emotional intelligence has been increasingly recognized as important over the last several decades, the EQ to go with IQ. The idea being, of course, that all the smarts in the world won’t do you good if you can’t navigate your own emotions, and those of others. Emotional intelligence has been linked to everything from mindfulness…
Read More
Social Media Use Today Could Mean Memory Slips Tomorrow
Go on a Facebook binge, and the consequence might be … I’m sorry, where was I? A new study by researchers at the University of Michigan implicates social media usage in higher rates of everyday memory failures such as forgetting whether you’ve already done something, or what it is you were going to do for…
Read More
What Makes a “Healthy” Personality?
Do you ever meet someone who just seems remarkably free of stress and comfortable with themselves? You might come away wondering whether there’s a certain set of personality traits that predisposes some people to be happy and successful no matter what life throws their way. This idea is one that’s long appealed to psychologists, as…
Read More
How Have Social Attitudes Changed in the Last Decade?
People’s attitudes toward different social groups tend to change over time. But how have people’s attitudes in the United States changed in recent years? A pair of researchers from Harvard University decided to tackle this complex question by asking an average of 3,700 people every month for a decade, essentially, how racist, homophobic, agist and…
Read More
Should Therapists Disclose Their Own Mental Health Struggles?
As a mental health blogger, I don’t have to think twice over pouring my heart out about my own mental health challenges. But therapists are in a more delicate position. On one hand, therapists might want to establish a sense of rapport by mentioning their personal experiences with problems their clients are confronting. On the…
Read More
Unlike Receiving, Giving Never Gets Old
When it comes to material goods, people are never quite satisfied with what they have. Eventually, that cool new phone you got for Christmas starts to seem routine. You get a good job, but sooner or later, you start to wish your salary was higher. The mindset of getting things is about always wanting more.…
Read More
“Popular” Teens May Be Lonelier
Along with the changes of adolescence comes an increased desire to be “popular.” But teenagers who aspire to high levels of social prestige might want to be careful what they wish for. A new study from researchers at the University of Michigan suggests that, paradoxically, popularity and loneliness tend to go together in adolescence. In…
Read More
Social Ostracism Linked to Internet Addiction
To understand people’s online behavior, it’s worth looking at what’s happening in their offline lives. That’s one takeaway from a new study published in the journal Psychiatry Research showing a relationship between social ostracism and internet addiction. Previous research has suggested that social factors play into excessive internet usage. As the authors point out, studies…
Read More