Posts by Neil Petersen

Envy gets a bad rap. I mean, let’s be real: being on a list of “seven deadly sins” isn’t good PR for anyone. Fortunately, psychologists aren’t always the types to judge a sin by its cover, and research into this most human of emotions has found that envy might actually have a good side. To…

If you’re like me, you spend a lot of time thinking about things other than what you’re doing in the present moment. In fact, if you’re like most people, your mind is wandering for almost half of your waking life. Considering how much time people spend with their minds adrift, researchers have started to get…

Decades of psychology research have shown something that pretty much makes sense: people who belong to more social groups tend to be happier. People who belong to multiple social groups have more access to social support, so it didn’t really come as a surprise when study after study confirmed that these people score higher on…

It’s no secret that trying new things is a good way to keep life interesting, but research suggests it can also improve your health by helping you lose weight and kick habits like smoking. In 2010, a group of psychologists from Stony Brook University had the idea that the buzz from engaging in new activities…

One thing psychologists have been interested in for a long time is the extent to which people put their “true selves” forward vs. projecting “false selves.” With the rise of social media, this question has taken an interesting digital twist. On Facebook, for example, it’s possible to use your account to reflect who you really…

Sports is as much about the mental game as the physical game. Competitive athletes have to perform well under pressure, keep their cool during shifts in momentum, and stay focused while they push their bodies to the limit. Athletes have several different kinds of coping strategies they use to deal with the nerve-wracking situations that…

There’s often some cognitive dissonance involved in the act of eating meat. On one hand, you might like animals and not want any of them to suffer. On the other hand, you might really enjoy eating them. So how do people deal with these conflicting emotions? Some people stop eating meat, of course, but many…

We don’t all have the same preferences when it comes to food. I know this to be true because if everyone had the same likes and dislikes as me, the cauliflower industry would have gone belly-up a long time ago. What’s more mysterious, though, is where these preferences come from. Studies looking at this question…

Many brain games and cognitive training programs claim to help you improve your working memory. Working memory is the kind of memory you draw on to hold information you’re currently using in your mind. The theory with working memory training is that because you use working memory for so many different tasks, strengthening your working…