Read about and understand the various psychological phenomena you observe in your day-to-day life. Get answers to common curiosities about everyday behavior. Understanding the root causes of your behaviors and those of others will greatly improve your understanding of human psychology. No human behavior, however small, is insignificant.
The term ‘hoovering’ comes from the popular vacuum cleaning brand. In relationships, hoovering is the tendency of a toxic person to ‘suck in’ their victim back into the toxic relationship dynamic. While it can happen in any relationship, it’s common in established romantic relationships. Toxic and abusive relationships tend to have this cyclical pattern to …
It’s common to see two people getting stuck in an argument where one of them says something like: “Answer my question! You’re deflecting!” When humans ask questions, they expect a straightforward answer. They don’t want you beating around the bush because it means extra and unnecessary cognitive processing. While some can handle the meandering, others …
Trauma is experienced when you face or witness a potentially life-threatening experience. A traumatic experience overwhelms the coping system of your mind. While most of us can deal with everyday stressors, a traumatic experience puts us in a state of permanent alert. It is an overactive and lingering stress response. Trauma that is experienced in …
“What a terrible thing to have lost one’s mind. Or not to have a mind at all.” – Dan Quayle We’ve all experienced times when we felt like we were losing our minds. This is a crazy psychological phenomenon that makes you think that you’re going crazy. Of course, it’s unlikely that you’re actually going …
Consider the set of all the things that happen to you. A lot of them you have no control over. You didn’t choose to be born. Some you have full control over. You chose to read this article. And then there are others you have partial control over. You can be good to someone in …
They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. If you’ve been at the receiving end of a woman’s yelling, you know you’ve seen something beyond hell. Both husbands and wives yell, but yelling as verbal abuse is mainly a woman’s arena.1Hamberger, L. K., & Larsen, S. E. (2015). Men’s and women’s experience of …
Aggression isn’t always physical. Sometimes, words can be used as swords. Simply increasing the volume and changing the tone of your words can cause significant damage to a person. Yelling is a form of verbal aggression.1McLaughlin, S., Bonner, G., Mboche, C., & Fairlie, T. (2010). A pilot study to test an intervention for dealing with …
When you experience a traumatic event, your mind perceives great danger and goes into survival mode. When your mind is in survival mode, your senses sharpen, and you enter into this super-learner mode, trying to understand your current situation as much as possible. The mind tries to learn as much as possible about a traumatic …
Name-calling or labeling is calling someone by degrading and demeaning names. The goal of name-calling is to hurt someone and make them look bad. It can occur in any relationship but is particularly damaging in a romantic relationship. A few incidences of name-calling here and there are forgivable, but if it happens repeatedly, it’s verbal …
In healthy romantic relationships, there’s a balance of closeness and distance. Each partner retains their own identity while also identifying with the relationship to some degree. This interdependence helps partners meet some of their needs themselves, and some are met by their partners. When there’s too much closeness in the relationship, the dynamic becomes unhealthy. …