Exploring the forces that shape the human psyche
Humans are a social species that evolved to live in tightly knit, genetically related groups. Early humans highly depended on their groups for survival. Being shunned by one’s social group likely meant death. Therefore, humans have developed psychological mechanisms to be sensitive to the signs of shunning. They seek to conform to their group and …
Being salty means being bitter towards something or someone. When others make you salty, they ‘leave a bad taste in your mouth’. Of course, they don’t physically put something bitter in your mouth. But it certainly feels that way. Human experiences are fascinating, as always. It’s natural to feel bitter towards someone when they intentionally …
There seem to be two types of people in the world- shallow and deep. You probably have some idea of who deep people are. Their thoughts, feelings, and words have depth. They have the ability to see beyond the surface. Shallow people are the complete opposite. They lack depth in their thoughts, words, feelings, and …
Intuition and instinct may seem like the same concepts. In fact, many use these terms interchangeably. But they differ in important ways. An instinct is an innate behavioral tendency shaped by evolution to promote survival and reproductive success, mostly, in the present moment. Our instinctive behaviors are triggered in response to some environmental stimuli. Instincts …
Humans are social species hard-wired to care about the business of other humans in their social circles. It’s what made us tick for thousands of years. An unwanted consequence of this tendency is nosiness. I have done a separate piece on what makes people nosy that you might want to check out. Long story short, …
A highly sensitive person easily senses threats in their social environment. They have a lower threshold of getting offended. Hence, they’re often labeled as thin-skinned and overreactive by others. Both genetic and environmental factors seem to contribute to high sensitivity. Introverts and those who score high on Neuroticism are likely to be highly sensitive. Traumatic …
A sociopathic person is one who has antisocial personality disorder. Sociopaths pursue their self-interest with disregard to others. They have a win-lose mentality. While both men and women can be sociopaths, sociopathy is more common in men. Sociopathy in boys is often detected at a young age (around 8 years). It’s not clear what exactly …
Neuroticism is a personality trait in the Big 5 or OCEAN model of personality. It lies on one end of a spectrum, the opposite end of which is Emotional Stability. Thus, those scoring high on Neuroticism tend to be emotionally unstable. Neurotics experience negative thoughts and emotions frequently and intensely. They have a lower threshold …
When people talk about suddenly remembering old memories, the memories they’re referring to are usually autobiographical or episodic memories. As the name suggests, this type of memory stores the episodes of our life. Another type of memory that can also be suddenly remembered is semantic memory. Our semantic memory is the storehouse of our knowledge …
Patting another person’s shoulder is common in social interactions. This body language gesture is highly context-dependent. Who does it and when determines what it means. In this article, we’ll explore all the possible meanings of ‘pat on the shoulder’ body language gesture. After that, we’ll discuss the meaning of a closely related ‘resting hand on …