Category: psychology
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10 Psychological ‘Mind’ Myths
PsyBlog presents 10 psychological ‘mind’ myths that can catch you out: We Don’t Only Use 10% of Our Brains Blind People’s Other Senses are Not More Acute Why Psychology is Not Just Common Sense The Attitude-Behaviour Gap: Why We Say One Thing But Do The Opposite Newborns Don’t Bond Immediately with their Mothers (or Within…
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Suicide and Media Coverage
The British Medical Journal has an article that I’ve spoken of numerous times lately (IRL), discussing how media coverage of suicides affects the rate of similar suicides. There is clear evidence that the media may affect method specific suicide rates. In Britain an excess of about 60 suicides by burning occurred in the 12 months…
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Manufacturing Consent With Fallacies
Scientific American’s Getting Duped: How the Media Messes With Your Mind educates us on two important fallacies used to undermine arguments. Statements made in the media can surreptitiously plant distortions in the minds of millions. Learning to recognize two commonly used fallacies can help you separate fact from fiction. […] One common method of spinning…
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The Flynn Effect and Our Declining IQs
The Flynn Effect is the gradual rise of the average IQ over generations, and the reason why IQ tests are periodically renormalised to reset the average to 100: an average IQ in our generation equals a higher than average IQ a generation or two beforehand. Or does it? According to new research it appears that…
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Understanding and Reducing Suicide
Discussing an article in The New York Times on understanding and reducing suicide rates, Mind Hacks’ Vaughan presents us with some other interesting research on the topic. If you want a flavour of really how simple the safety measures need to be to make a difference to suicide rate, research has found that putting pills…
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Dr Mezmer’s Dictionary of Bad Psychology
For an amusing take on the A-Z of psychology, Dr Mezmer’s Dictionary of Bad Psychology is close at hand. Meme: The idea that since ideas reproduce metaphorically like genes, that they must reproduce actually like genes. Thus because ideas spread like the plague, tunes are infectious, and advertising phrases are catchy, this must mean that…
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The Best of Neurophilosophy
The Best of Neurophilosophy is a roundup of the best posts from the blog of the same name. Posts highlighted include those on brainwashing, prefrontal lobotomies, trepanation,and the psychology of Alfred Hitchcock.
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Books on Behaviour, Irrationality, & Economics
I’m struggling to separate the wheat from the chaff in this list of books. I just know that hidden within some there must be a treasure trove of knowledge. The problem is: in which? Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions The Black Swan: The…
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Using Cognitive Bias: Politics and Policy
You may have noticed that I’ve recently been fascinated by everything cognitive bias. With the release of Nudge—a book looking at how politicians around the world are using cognitive bias—the general public are now going to be hearing about it a lot more too. The Times has a nice case-study where the theories are used…