Posts by Neil Petersen

People aren’t always good at predicting the impact their actions will have on themselves and others. I wrote about one example earlier this week, where introverts tended to be overly pessimistic about how much they’d enjoy social interactions. Another example comes from a study published this month in Psychological Science, this time on the topic…

Why do people vary in their tendency to seek out opportunities to interact with others? A reasonable explanation would be that extraverts simply enjoy social interactions more than introverts do. To some extent, this appears to be the case. But a new study from researchers at Duke University and Johns Hopkins University suggests there’s more…

In a time where we carry smartphones that provide a constant stream of information about our lives, it’s worth asking: what can you tell about someone’s mental health from their smartphone data? Obviously, their search history might tell you something. But psychology and engineering researchers at University of Virginia turned to a different source: people’s…

What do we worry about when we worry? More often than not, the future. Ruminating about what tomorrow holds is a familiar activity for people with anxiety. A logical question, then, is whether teaching people techniques for taking a step back from worries about the future can help with anxiety disorders. And that’s exactly the…

With prolonged sitting being blamed as a culprit in heart disease and early death, medical professionals are increasingly pointing to standing at work as a practical step that people can take to improve their health. But what happens when an individual decides they’re going to stand in a work environment where sitting is the norm?…

How are you feeling right now? And how do you wish you were feeling? Not everyone gives the same answer to that second question. Different people value different emotional states. Some people seek out high-arousal emotional states like excitement and enthusiasm while others strive for low-arousal states like calmness, relaxation and peacefulness. Psychologists call the…

Do you feel younger than your age? If so, you might be right. Like other parts of the body, the brain ages. Certain regions shrink with time. And as with other types of aging, the speed of this process varies from one individual to the next. Hence the idea that a given person can have…

Remember nap time in kindergarten? I hated it. I didn’t see the point of lying down and doing nothing. Nap time in high school on the other hand? I would have been down for that. As it turns out, a lot of teens could probably benefit from some midday shuteye. A variety of studies show…

Money can’t buy happiness, but not having enough money can sure get in the way of it. Which raises the possibility: maybe you can improve people’s mental health simply by handing them some cash. In a recent study, researchers in Italy, the United States and Zambia put that idea to the test. They did so…