Posts tagged psychology

copyranter: Your smartphone is a digital prison (3 photos, or click image). Well played, Outside Magazine.

copyranter:

Your smartphone is a digital prison (3 photos, or click image).

Well played, Outside Magazine.

I read an article many years ago about kids who, for whatever reason, see the world as crazy - they could have crazy parents, an abusive priest, some other awful circumstance. Some kids will blame themselves. They’ll say, ‘I know the priest is good. He’s a man of God. So what he’s doing is good, and I must be wrong.’ But the other child, the Absurd Child, will say, ‘No, I’m not crazy. The world is fucking nuts. My parents are insane. That priest is crazy.’ And that’s the beginning of the comic perspective.
Harold Ramis (via maxistentialist)
The adrenal system reacts to stress by releasing hormones that make us alert and reactive. The problem is, the adrenal system can’t tell what’s a regular case of nerves and what’s real and pending disaster.
Gotcha.
The worst thing to call somebody is crazy. It’s dismissive. “I don’t understand this person. So they’re crazy.” That’s bullshit. These people are not crazy. They’re strong people. Maybe their environment is a little sick.
Dave Chappelle

Whoa, weird to see gaslighting, one of my pet psychological phenomenons, getting so much attention right now.

Some find it strange that while some audience members took issue with the flimsiness of Superman’s disguise, they didn’t take issue with the idea of the existence of a superbeing whose only weakness was kryptonite.
Wikipedia re: Suspension of Disbelief
Much more so than in the past, the things we do in our daily lives are visible to a mass audience. …this sense that we are living for an audience, we are performing — even when we’re off stage, we’re performing — is a powerful metaphor…
On Point talks Hunger Games with Time Magazine’s Lev Grossman

MITOCW Courses in Context: Rejection and Alcohol

In a recent study that investigates the relationship between natural and drug rewards, neuroscientists have discovered that rejected male fruit flies drank four times more alcohol than mated ones.

Neuropeptide F, a chemical found in the fruit fly brain, regulates behavior like eating, anxiety, and sleeping. Scientists believe there is a link between neuropeptide F activity, the mating experience, and alcohol consumption.

These courses provide more information about neurology, behavior and drugs:

Well, my Sunday plans just got derailed.

facebook, agressive narcissism, etc

“They often say shocking things and inappropriately self-disclose because they cannot stand to be ignored or waste a chance of self-promotion.”

Take Control Of A SimCity’s Environmental Destiny

“As any SimCity player knows, the only thing more fun than creating a thriving city is destroying it with a disaster.” 

When we access things from our memory, we do more than reveal it’s there. It’s not like a playback. What we retrieve becomes more retrievable in the future. Provided the retrieval succeeds, the more difficult and involved the retrieval, the more beneficial it is.
Garth Sundem on wired.com

older but interesting: NYTimes on Decision Fatigue

Decision fatigue helps explain why ordinarily sensible people get angry at colleagues and families, splurge on clothes, buy junk food at the supermarket and can’t resist the dealer’s offer to rustproof their new car. …The more choices you make throughout the day, the harder each one becomes for your brain, and eventually it looks for shortcuts, usually in either of two very different ways. One shortcut is to become reckless: to act impulsively instead of expending the energy to first think through the consequences. (Sure, tweet that photo! What could go wrong?) The other shortcut is the ultimate energy saver: do nothing. Instead of agonizing over decisions, avoid any choice.