When Sorrows Come | Until recently, and even in common accounts today, bodily and mental ills were viewed as … | 2021/07/13 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Teaching | 2021-07-13 12:15:53 |
Keeping Time | What then, is time? If no one asks me, I know. If I wish to … | 2021/06/15 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Measurement | 2021-06-15 09:15:51 |
If I Had a Hammer: Using Tools | Singing can be wonderful to listen to, and human touch has soothing properties. But the … | 2021/06/01 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Teaching | 2021-06-01 08:42:08 |
Watching Movies | Few topics in psychology have provoked as much discussion as our emotions. They are sometimes … | 2021/05/25 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Teaching | 2021-05-25 08:51:13 |
Left Brain, Right Brain? | Where are the boundaries in forming our parts? We are each a collection of trillions … | 2021/04/20 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Myths, Teaching | 2021-04-20 13:50:48 |
Cognitive Biases | People who expect fairness or perfection of evolution are bound to be disappointed. Evolution can … | 2021/04/06 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, It’s a feature | 2021-04-06 13:32:47 |
Social Status | Despite variations in definitions, both dictionary-type and operational, the phenomenon of social status seems to … | 2021/03/23 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Teaching | 2021-03-23 15:22:52 |
Empathy | The social involvement of our brains is amazing. A thoroughly social brain doesn’t come to … | 2021/02/23 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Teaching | 2021-02-23 10:45:04 |
Glia and Learning | You can’t learn something unless you almost know it already. Decades ago, that principle was … | 2021/02/09 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, It’s a feature, Teaching | 2021-02-09 10:05:27 |
Visual Flicker | Psychology runs hot and cold as we sample its topics. Verbal learning, or mastering paired … | 2021/01/26 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Measurement | 2021-01-26 12:37:49 |
Stickiness and Slipperiness | Some sensations seem to come out of nowhere. We lack stickiness receptors, yet we know … | 2021/01/12 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Measurement, Teaching | 2021-01-12 08:56:43 |
How Do Beliefs Work? | The New Year is almost here! If you want to start it off right, here … | 2020/12/29 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Teaching | 2020-12-29 09:11:10 |
Rude Behavior | Joe Pyne was one of the first rude disk jockeys. Callers found themselves off the … | 2020/12/17 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Teaching | 2020-12-17 15:41:54 |
Movement and Maps | When we’re navigating over long distances, making long treks, we don’t worry much about the … | 2020/12/09 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Teaching | 2020-12-09 15:37:58 |
Studying | After decades of searching for an easy way to learn tough material, I have to … | 2020/12/01 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Translational | 2020-12-01 10:10:44 |
Chocolate Psychology | Chocolate has a psychology. Nougat does not, even though both confections are popular, with long … | 2020/11/24 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Myths, Teaching | 2020-11-24 10:43:32 |
What Next? | When it comes to avoiding nasty surprises, most of us rely on our experience to … | 2020/11/18 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Teaching | 2020-11-18 09:47:21 |
Recognizing Faces | Amid the grieving and financial desperation that arrived with COVID-19, the difficulty in recognizing our … | 2020/11/03 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Teaching | 2020-11-03 13:29:28 |
The Call of Nature | Though it’s not a published category, disgust of natural causes belongs among the six or … | 2020/10/20 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, It’s a feature | 2020-10-20 09:18:42 |
Thrills | Some folks just don’t make sense to others, eating fugu or cave diving when the … | 2020/10/13 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Teaching | 2020-10-13 09:59:07 |
Traveling | The recent coronavirus has taken us back in time, from luxury travel last year to … | 2020/10/07 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Teaching | 2020-10-07 09:55:25 |
Is Perception Reality? | The psychological differences between a frog’s vision and ours should not be overlooked. The frog’s … | 2020/09/29 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Myths, Teaching | 2020-09-29 13:02:46 |
Human Nature | The assignment for today is to write something that is not true about human nature. … | 2020/09/22 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Myths | 2020-09-22 13:09:29 |
Keeping Our Wits | Airplanes are required to carry more than the minimum weight of fuel that could insure … | 2020/09/16 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Teaching | 2020-09-16 09:49:28 |
Interpersonal Synchrony | When we’re with other people, we tend to act as they do, and they act … | 2020/09/08 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Teaching | 2020-09-08 09:50:59 |
Why Can’t I Multitask? | OK, can you can multitask, as long as the tasks don’t conflict with each other. … | 2020/09/01 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, It’s a feature | 2020-09-01 09:20:23 |
Prehistoric Psychology | We certainly did not evolve to become bankers and dress designers. As far as anyone … | 2020/08/25 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Myths, Translational | 2020-08-25 10:44:36 |
Love1, Love2, Love3 | We follow a biopsychosocial approach almost by necessity in discussing love, though it’s possible to … | 2020/08/18 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Teaching, Translational | 2020-08-18 15:33:33 |
Placebo Controls | Here and there, Americans are looking for reasons to swallow hydroxychloroquine to prevent COVID-19, often … | 2020/08/11 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Measurement | 2020-08-11 13:03:04 |
Enjoying Nature | There were no psychologists to right the boat the last time we went overboard for … | 2020/08/04 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Teaching | 2020-08-04 11:01:55 |
Moods | We make up a lot of what we see and hear. Most situations are ambiguous. … | 2020/07/28 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Translational | 2020-07-28 10:15:52 |
Thinking About the Future | A global pandemic doomed a lot of social and commercial predictions for 2020, but the … | 2020/07/21 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Teaching | 2020-07-21 08:45:36 |
Games | The blog post on “Play” would have been a good time to bring up game … | 2020/07/14 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Teaching | 2020-07-14 09:23:16 |
Why Am I Always Cold? | Are you feeling cold? That’s not a problem, in principle. We all have a heater … | 2020/07/07 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Measurement | 2020-07-07 08:58:39 |
Mistakes | For any one of us, there is just one mistake: a violation of the plan, … | 2020/06/30 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Measurement, Teaching, Uncategorized | 2020-06-30 09:44:01 |
Parenting | Parenting invites dichotomies: Not only are there two kinds of parent, mother and father, but … | 2020/06/23 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Teaching | 2020-06-23 09:27:41 |
Musical Rhythm | Some people cannot follow a beat. Such beat deafness, a form of amusia, appears in … | 2020/06/16 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Teaching | 2020-06-16 11:21:02 |
A Better Night’s Sleep | If you tend to be a target for ads about everyday-carry tools, as I am, … | 2020/06/09 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Measurement | 2020-06-09 10:40:48 |
Where Do Beliefs Come From? | Among Americans, 98 percent of scientists believe that humans evolved over time, and 81 percent … | 2020/06/02 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Teaching, Translational | 2020-06-02 09:52:25 |
Addiction | Prominent psychologist Jordan Peterson has undergone recent treatment for a drug habit. He has found … | 2020/05/26 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Translational | 2020-05-26 09:58:18 |
Emotional Intensity | Some people like the thrill of falling from a great height, while many others find … | 2020/05/19 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Teaching | 2020-05-19 09:11:04 |
Compared to What? | The psychology curriculum has changed since some of you left the classroom. Not only has … | 2020/05/12 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Measurement, Teaching | 2020-05-12 09:17:50 |
Eye Movements | Our ability to see with our eyes hardly attracts the attention that the eyes capture … | 2020/05/05 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, It’s a feature | 2020-05-05 09:01:38 |
Stress and Depression | How much is too much of anything? We often judge poorly. A youngster fails to … | 2020/04/28 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | It’s a feature, Translational | 2020-04-28 10:09:54 |
Taking Stock | With the topics I’ve introduced so far, I have tried to show how biological, psychological … | 2020/04/21 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Measurement, Teaching | 2020-04-21 11:00:35 |
Cheering, Talking, Singing | For many of us, the voice is an unreliable tool. Through inflammation, stress, injury, and … | 2020/04/14 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Teaching | 2020-04-14 09:51:41 |
Left Hand, Right Hand | Years ago, William Calvin wrote a popular book attributing the evolution of right-handedness to the way it … | 2020/04/07 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Translational | 2020-04-07 09:20:28 |
Mental Effort | The absentminded professor will remind everyone of mental effort, distracted by a big idea from … | 2020/03/31 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Teaching, Translational | 2020-03-31 05:37:07 |
Loneliness | Most of us experience loneliness. The need to be with others helps us survive, but … | 2020/03/24 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Translational | 2020-03-24 10:16:49 |
Reaction Time | Paraphrasing Robert Benchley, we may say that there are two kinds of people in the … | 2020/03/17 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Measurement | 2020-03-17 10:26:12 |
Forgetting | Even walking through a door will make you forget—unless the door opens onto a toilet, … | 2020/03/10 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | It’s a feature, Teaching | 2020-03-10 13:14:31 |
Behavioral Immunity | Once again a new disease is threatening us, this time a new coronavirus. We’re familiar … | 2020/03/03 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Teaching, Translational | 2020-03-03 09:27:51 |
Measuring Pain | Is your pain the same as my pain? And how much worse is a toothache … | 2020/02/25 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Measurement | 2020-02-25 13:14:41 |
Play | Are you pro-play or anti-play? After recent concern about study crowding out exercise, schools are … | 2020/02/18 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Teaching | 2020-02-18 08:56:40 |
Resilience | It’s remarkable how some other people (and animals, too, including pets) seem to be resistant to stress more than … | 2020/02/12 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Translational | 2020-02-12 15:00:39 |
Navigation | You can use psychology for navigating. But it occurs to me that if we analyze … | 2020/02/05 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Translational | 2020-02-05 12:06:24 |
Weather, Sun, Moon and Our Behavior | After the earth cooled below the boiling point of water about 4 billion years ago, … | 2020/01/29 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Myths | 2020-01-29 09:20:46 |
Fatigue | It’s important to see our evolutionary traits as features sometimes, instead of bugs. Evolution has … | 2020/01/27 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, It’s a feature, Teaching | 2020-01-27 11:30:52 |
Creating Flavors | Flavor arises as much from psychology as from physiology. The brain constructs flavor, which is … | 2020/01/20 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, Translational | 2020-01-20 09:45:37 |
Boredom | Why, when we should be paying attention to something repetitive, do we get bored? Being … | 2020/01/20 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | Biopsychosocial, It’s a feature, Teaching | 2020-01-20 08:00:55 |
Confusion | Why does learning involve confusion? Why don’t we just get gradually stronger as we learn, … | 2020/01/16 | bloggerjohng@gmail.com | It’s a feature, Teaching, Translational | 2020-01-16 10:50:16 |