Posts by Neil Petersen
Labels Can Help or Hurt People With Mental Health Conditions
Labels are a tricky part of mental health awareness. On one hand, no one wants to be reduced to a label. On the other hand, labels give us a language to talk about mental health. So does using labels for mental health conditions help or hurt people with those conditions? The answer appears to be:…
Read MoreShyness Is Related to Thinking About Thinking
Feelings of shyness can come with all kinds of thoughts. Worries, doubts, rumination. But a new study by researchers in Italy suggests it goes deeper than that: shyness might also have to do with how we think about thinking. Psychologists refer to the we make sense of our own thoughts as metacognition. In the study…
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Spooky Science: The Psychology of Paranormal Beliefs
Long-time readers of this blog will know that I can take the fun out of almost any holiday. For Thanksgiving, I’ve written about the advantages of being ungrateful and the inner lives of Turkeys. On Valentines day, I covered loneliness. So, Happy Halloween! Let’s talk about ghosts. Why do people believe in ghosts? There are…
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Can Natural Sounds Recharge the Brain?
Buy a CD of music for relaxation, and there’s a good chance it’ll feature running water, chirping birds and rustling leaves. Instinctively, it makes sense to us that the sounds of nature should be refreshing for the mind. This idea hasn’t been lost on psychology researchers. A range of studies have investigated whether natural sounds…
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Materialism and Gambling
There are different ways we can talk about gambling. For example, we can talk about the way it’s similar to other compulsive and addictive behaviors. But one aspect we talk about surprisingly little is that gambling is, on some level, about money. A new paper in Journal of Gambling Studies takes this angle. As the…
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What Sets Adults With Autism Who Have Savant Skills Apart?
Occasionally, people with autism have special abilities where they are able to far outperform others. They might be able to perform feats of memory, create incredibly realistic works of art, or tell you without hesitating that January 31, 2021 will be a Sunday. Of course, the majority of people with autism don’t have savant syndrome,…
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The Science of Having Sex With Your Ex
Some psychology studies provide practical insights with obvious applications in everyday life. Today brings an example of one of those studies, in the form of a paper titled Pursuing Sex With an Ex: Does It Hinder Breakup Recovery?, published in Archives of Sexual Behavior. The study investigated – well, pretty much exactly what the title…
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Mistaking Narcissism for Self-Esteem Might Explain Why People Are Drawn to Narcissists
If I asked you to list five traits you value in your friends, narcissism probably won’t make the cut. Yet narcissists are often able to make a good impression and draw people to themselves. A new study in the Journal of Personality provides more evidence for the surprising charisma of narcissists, and also points to…
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Facebook Posts Can Predict Depression Risk
We tend to curate our Facebook profiles to control the image we project. But a new study suggests that when it comes to mental health, our Facebook posts might be more revealing than we realize. In the study, researchers in Philadelphia, PA and Stony Brook, NY looked to see if they could identify people with…
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What an Amazing Coincidence Tells Us About Schadenfreude
In December 2015, researchers asked 59 Argentinian adults to consider this description of a scenario featuring Argentina’s long-time football rival, Brazil. They meant it as a hypothetical exercise: Brazil and Peru are playing a football match. The match is decisive for the both teams’ chances of advancing to the next round. Brazil will make it…
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