One of the things you learn very early on when you study psychological research is that what people say they do and what they actually do don’t always line up. In fact, they quite frequently differ. So as a researcher (who also happens to be a woman), it’s not surprising to me that it’s not all that uncommon for women to fake orgasms at least once in their life. » Read more
If You Say “Oh, Just One More Thing,” Too Many Times, Your Project Will Suffer
Have you ever worked on a project that felt really doable and straightforward at the beginning? One where you set out with a clear vision of how it was going to unfold, only to find as you worked your way through it that there was a lot that you missed on your initial planning?
At first, » Read more
It’s Easy to Underestimate How Much Time You Need to Do Things
“Oh yeah,” Past Me said. “This is a great plan. I’ll have plenty of time to get it all done.”
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Of course she’d say that. She never has to actually do anything she signs me up for.
What a jerk, Past Me.
Typically, » Read more
No Matter What Intense Feeling You’re Currently Having, Eventually You’ll Return to Your Norm
The good news is that no matter what difficult thing you’re going through, odds are that eventually things will swing back the other way for you emotionally. And even though it can take a lot longer than we want sometimes, it’s basically inevitable that you won’t feel quite that bad forever.
The bad news is that no matter what thrilling or fun things you’re currently experiencing, » Read more
It’s Humbling to Realize We Do Not See Things As They Really Are, But We Don’t
“The brain is designed with blind spots, optical and psychological, and one of its cleverest tricks is to confer on us the comforting illusion that we, personally, do not have any…’naive realism’ [is] the inescapable conviction that we perceive objects and events clearly, ‘as they really are. ‘ We assume that other reasonable people see things the same way we do. » Read more
Do We All Go Through the Same Discrete Life Stages? Or Are Identity Development and Aging More Idiosyncratic Than That?
While everyone’s a little different, and individuals can be very individual in nature (thus, the name), culturally there does seem to be a common belief that a life can be broken up into segments, life stages, if you will.
There are a ton of jokes about midlife crisis, angsty teenage years, » Read more
Risky Sex Is Judged More Harshly Than Objectively More Lethal Non-Sexual Risks
Which decision is more lethal?:
- Deciding to drive from Detroit to Chicago
- Having sex without a condom with a person whose HIV status is unknown
If you’re anything like most people, you will say that the second scenario is the riskier one. That risky sex poses more danger to you than a simple car trip from Detroit to Chicago. » Read more
Push Me, Pull Me — Or Then Again, Don’t
I think a lot about an old relationship I had in high school. Not because I miss it. Nothing like that. In fact, a lot of the time dating Greg was hell.
But it was, oddly, a hell I couldn’t walk away from.
Part of it I could chalk up to inexperience. » Read more
What Is Parentification?
It’s funny. When I talk to other adults who were abused as children, many of us have encountered a similar phenomenon.
People who find out about our past telling us, “I never would have guessed. You seem so put together. So mature. Like a person with your shit together.”
When someone would say something like that to me, » Read more
The Light Triad of Personality Traits
As I mentioned in an earlier installment of this series, researchers previously went to work to determine personality traits that could predispose individuals to difficult antisocial behavior. And in the process of this, they identified three culprits — Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy — a combination that they named “the dark triad.”
This research took place in the early 2000s, » Read more