These days I live with a romantic partner who makes me very happy. Before I met them, I didn’t know this was actually possible. I’d had long-term relationships before, but I’d never been with someone who was so supportive. And frankly, even as responsive in conversation, if I really think about it (stumbling on today’s study prompted me to). » Read more
Can People Who Want to Change Their Attachment Style Do So?
I’ve written quite a few times on this website about attachment styles. As I’ve written in those previous posts, perhaps the biggest lesson of all in child development is that the first year of so of our life is a radically important time for us emotionally. While we continue to learn about trust and social relationships over the course of our life (and experience another notable period of turbulence at puberty), » Read more
Gluten Avoidance Doesn’t Seem to Be Overly Political
“Gluten-free? Y’all have a gluten-free option?” His voice carries. And so does his indignation. “I tell you what… it’s those liberals with their namby-pamby gluten shit that are ruining the country.”
I frown. Okay Kyle, I think. Because I bet his name is Kyle. Or Lyle. He looks like a Kyle or a Lyle. » Read more
What Sorts of Things Do People Regret Most?
Ahh… regret.
Some people claim they don’t have time for it. “No regrets,” they’ll proclaim proudly.
And yet, even some of these folks, when you get them in a quiet or vulnerable state, they’ll freely admit that there are some things they wished they would have done differently.
Even if they say it quickly and add on something like, » Read more
Women and Men Are About Equally Lonely
Sometimes it’s wild to me how much people try to place on gender. From a very early age — typically at birth — human beings are put into one of two categories, assigned male or female, and once this is done, it starts to be used as a shortcut for who we are. How we’re supposed to behave. » Read more
Most Children Do Not Take After Their Parents Politically
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a person say that they want to raise their kids “the right way.” And when they say this, what they actually seem to mean is that they want to raise that child to have their values.
Values can encompass a wide area of socialization. » Read more
When We Get Close to People, We Overestimate How Effectively We Communicate With Them
“We finish each other’s–”
“Sandwiches.”
–Arrested Development (and later, Frozen)
*
It’s kind of the best feeling… when you get close enough to a person that you feel like you know what they’re going to say next. When you can actually accurately finish their sentences. » Read more
Sexist Beliefs Are Linked to Dark Triad Personality Traits
We covered the dark triad of personality traits in an earlier installment of this series. Feel free to reread that article for a review. But here’s a recap. Basically, personality researchers wanted to find out if there were traits that could act as early warning signs for antisocial behavior.
After much toil (and warring back and forth with one another), » Read more
Intellectually Humble People Are Better at Applying What They’ve Learned
As I’ve mentioned in previous installments of this series, Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias whereby the most unskilled or incompetent individuals think they are much better at things than they actually are. For more information on Dunning-Kruger, please feel free to read the following two articles:
Kinksters Report Fewer Sexual Problems & Higher Sexual Satisfaction Than the Vanilla Population
I remember when I first got into kink, got hooked into the kink community. My vanilla friends weren’t quite sure what to do with me. It was interesting in a way — since they knew that I was in an open marriage at the time. That my husband and I saw other people. That we considered ourselves polyamorous. » Read more