Once the New Year’s celebrations wind down and the post-midnight fatigue fades away, the reality of your New Year’s resolution sets in. You’ve declared your goals to friends and family, and there’s no turning back. We’ve all been there: committing to healthier eating, more exercise, or mastering the guitar. Yet, our enthusiasm often wanes by…
Currently Viewing: Psychology
No one thinks they’re joining a cult. They think they’ve found community. Purpose. Answers. Maybe even a new version of themselves. For many people, the early stages of cult recruitment don’t feel threatening at all. They feel warm, validating, and deeply personal. That’s part of what makes cults so psychologically powerful. They often appeal to ordinary human needs: belonging, certainty, identity, and meaning. Over time, that sense of connection can…
As the fall season nears, the spooky-loving souls of the world begin decorating their houses with ghouls and goblins, making orders for pumpkin spice lattes, and busting out old VHS tapes of “Hocus Pocus” for their annual rewatch. For some, the movie’s backdrop in Salem, Massachusetts, evokes thoughts of the Salem witch trials. Suddenly, their…
Casinos don’t just rely on luck to make money—they rely on psychology. From the moment you step onto a gaming floor, everything around you is designed to keep you playing longer than you planned. While gambling industry groups promote responsible gaming, the subtle cues that influence behavior are often hiding in plain sight. Lighting, sounds,…
“And may the odds be ever in your favor.” — Effie Trinket in “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins On November 8, 2022, Edwin Castro walked into Joe’s Service Center in Altadena, California, and walked out with a winning Powerball ticket worth $2.05 billion, the largest national lottery jackpot in history. The odds of Castro…
People often use the titles “psychologist” and “psychiatrist” interchangeably. But while they’re separated by just a few letters, practitioners of both specialties would tell you their professions are quite different. There are certainly similarities between psychologists and psychiatrists. Both are “mind experts” who treat their patients’ mental and emotional conditions, albeit in different ways that…
“Imposter syndrome” is a popular term on the internet lately, though it has been around since the late 1970s. Georgia State University psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes coined the term “imposter phenomenon” in their 1978 study on high-achieving women who felt as though their success was not attributed to their own abilities. What…
Group polarization is a social psychology concept that describes how people’s views can become more extreme after discussing them with like-minded others. In other words, that old question “If everyone jumped off a cliff, would you?” is not as simple as it sounds. What Is Group Polarization? Group polarization occurs when a group of like-minded people reinforce…
Nearly all of us are looking for the secret to personal success, quite literally. The self-help book “The Secret” has sold over 35 million copies worldwide by claiming success is derived from energy put out into the universe. Similarly, articles touting the “Top Habits of Successful People” promise that the key to a happy, healthy…
To call some of the most famous psychology experiments of all time scary would be an understatement. The Monster Study, Little Albert Experiment, and Stanford Prison Experiment are some of the most shocking and provocative studies ever conducted. Though they’ve captivated psychologists for decades, studies like these do little to accurately describe experimental psychologists or…
CONNECT WITH US