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.
Why do people commit suicide?What mental states drive people to take such an extreme step? Once, when I was in my teens, I read a newspaper piece about this politician who’d died in a helicopter crash. He was dearly loved by the people of his region and when they heard of his death, many died …
Why do some people sacrifice their lives for others? What’s the psychology behind self-sacrifice? Humans are genetically programmed to seek survival. Having a psychology that promotes self-sacrifice doesn’t make much sense, at first glance. In A Tale of Two Cities, a famous novel by Charles Dickens, two men named Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton fall in …
You decide to learn a skill, say programming, and buy the best book you know about it. After finishing the book and doing some exercises, you feel like you’ve mastered programming. Say your ability to program has reached from level 0 to level 3. You feel like a pro and add ‘programming’ to your resume …
The first thing to note when it comes to the psychology of sharing on social media is that the way people behave on social media is not that far removed from how they behave in reality. Just as what people say and do in real life tells us who they are, how they act on …
What is it about fire that fascinates us so much? Why are camping trips so incomplete without fires? Why do people like sitting by the fire and having deep, meaningful conversations? Growing up as a kid, I was always fascinated with fire. I bothered my parents with questions about it. I experimented with it. I burnt …
Most people are conformists who conform to the social norms of their respective societies. After all, man is a social animal, right? Conforming to your social group helps you stay in the good books of your group members. And when you’re in the good books of your group members, they’re likely to help you and …
To understand why justice is important, we first need to understand the evolution of the tendency in humans to form cooperative coalitions. This is because it’s this phenomenon only that gives rise to contexts in which we seek justice and revenge. So why do we form cooperative coalitions at all?Why do people come together and …
In this article, we’ll discuss the psychology of hit songs. Specifically, how the principles of Psychology can be exploited to make a hit song. I’ll focus on four key concepts- patterns, emotional themes, group identity, and violation of expectations. It’s hard to imagine life without music. Despite music being an integral part of all human …
Why do people believe conspiracy in theories that sound stupid to others but not to the conspiracy theorists themselves? Conspiracy theorists such as: Shapeshifting reptilians are ruling our world, the earth is flat, and the moon is an abandoned spaceship. Aliens tripping on marijuana (which cures everything) draw crop circles in fields to communicate with …
In this article, we’ll explore the psychology of deja vu with a special emphasis on the reasons behind this weird phenomenon. Deja vu is a French phrase meaning “already seen”. It’s a feeling of familiarity that you get when you’re in a new situation despite knowing you’re experiencing the situation for the first time. People …