Speaking a second language can change everything from problem-solving skills to personality – almost as if you are two people   Cognitive enhancement is just the start. According to some studies, my memories, values, even my personality, may change depending on which language I happen...

When it comes to stimulating creativity, brainstorming is one of the least efficient methods. The idea behind Groupthink models is that creativity and achievement requires other people. Lone geniuses are out, and collaboration is in. Society is snuffing out the potential of introverts –...

Using Cognitive Science to Unleash Your Hidden Creativity   Everybody has their own pet theory about how to generate ideas and be productive: some chug caffeine, others relax; some work in groups, others work alone; some work at night, others in the morning. This blog draws from recent...

Too much of a good thing … positive feelings can lead to hasty judgments and stagnation The happier you are, the better, right? Not necessarily. Studies show there is a darker side to feeling good and the pursuit of happiness can sometimes make you … well, less happy. Too much...

Exploring the role of social media in perpetuating the culture of fear.  How do those using social media leverage fear?  How is fear spread through social media?  When and where can technology combat fear?  What are the social costs of that fear? 1. We live in a culture of fear. 2. The...

“Society has a cultural bias towards extroverts.” – Susan Cain   Susan Cain is a former lawyer who quit Wall Street to write a book about how society is geared around extroverts at the expense of introverts and the wider economy. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a...

People are often unaware of their own ‘headline thinking’ and have not yet developed the ability to see past it The language one uses both indicates and influences the way one thinks. Without at least recognizing one’s own tendency to engage in ‘headline thinking’ — and...

We don’t just respond to things as we see, feel, or hear them. Even our most seemingly simple pleasures are affected by our beliefs about hidden essences and the origins of a person or object   Why are we so concerned with the origins of objects? Why do we respond so much to our...

Researchers probe the neuroscience of creativity, seeing fMRI evidence that our notion of the “divided brain” is indeed mistaken   Painters, designers, architects and other creative individuals are typically thought of as “right-brained.” But a new study from the University of...

In one experiment, just telling a man he would be observed by a female was enough to hurt his psychological performance   Movies and television shows are full of scenes where a man tries unsuccessfully to interact with a pretty woman. In many cases, the potential suitor ends up acting...

On the emotional scaffolding of the self, or how the dynamics of temperament fluctuate with social context   What does it mean to be human? Centuries worth of scientific thought, artistic tradition and spiritual practice have attempted to answer this most fundamental question about our...

Upper class people are more likely to behave selfishly, studies suggest Higher social classes more likely to lie, cheat, cut up other road users and not stop at pedestrian crossings, say researchers. A raft of studies into unethical behaviour across the social classes has delivered a withering...

If someone asked you to describe the psychological aspects of personhood, what would you say? Chances are, you’d describe things like thought, memory, problem-solving, reasoning, maybe emotion. In other words, you probably list the major headings of a cognitive psychology text-book. In...

We’re often blind to the not-so-wonderful traits we possess—but quick to point them out in others   Has someone said you’re acting like a jerk (or worse) in social situations?   Here are 6 reasons why you may have earned this title: 1.  You only talk about yourself....

Michael Gazzaniga, one of the world’s leading researchers in cognitive neuroscience, describes the mystery of free will: “If you think about it this way, if you are a Martian coming by earth and looking at all these humans and then looking at how they work you wouldn’t—it would...

What happens when scientific investigation gives us a conclusion we do not like, for example: prayer does not physically heal anyone (or else makes things worse for the patient being prayed for), homeopathy’s only effect is to pay a charlatan, and “Mother” Earth is finding smarter ways...

Sherlock Holmes’s technique is so elusive not only because it relies on observational mastery that most of us do not possess but in that it also manages to both cast off and exploit one of the most common reasoning fallacies that we are prone to committing: the conjunction fallacy, whereby...

Empathy, a concept originally introduced as Einfühlung by Theodore Lipps, is a state that allows us to share in the experiences and mental states of others. It lets us understand–or at least begin to approximate–their feelings, their internal conditions, their possible thoughts and...

Contextual nature of memory   Our minds respond to cues in our surroundings to retrieve whatever it was that needed retrieving. In other words, we recall information better in the same environment as we stored it–or, in my case, the same environment that triggered the connection–to...

It starts innocently enough, perhaps the first time you recognize your own reflection. You. Yourself. Your very own self.   This was an (admittedly illegal) form of protest against the inescapability of in-your-face marketing in the city I live in. And now that the internet is part of...

Children today reach puberty earlier and adulthood later. The result: A lot of teenage weirdness. What’s wrong with the teenage mind? How does the boy who can thoughtfully explain the reasons never to drink and drive end up in a drunken crash? Why does the girl who knows all about birth...

Psychologists are learning that the brain stays agile well into middle age, retaining the ability to learn new skill sets and take on different points of view by building new neural connections. And nothing is more important to maintaining a healthy brain than receiving an education, say...

Many of us subscribe to false beliefs about how our memories work, sometimes with serious consequences   As a lifelong user of human memory, you probably feel you’ve got a good idea of how it works, right? To test your understanding of memory, we compare several commonplace...

From coquetry to selfishness, or what the Sea of Wealth has to do with the City and District of Love   Nineteenth-century ideals of womanhood and beauty expressed as much about women as they did about the society in which they were germinated. At a time of radical sociocultural and...

What the libraries of yore have to do with today’s information economy and the heart’s will. From Anne Lamott‘s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life: “You get your intuition back when you make space for it, when you stop the chattering of the rational mind. The rational...

Do we really have free will? Free will has long been a fraught concept among philosophers and theologians. Now neuroscience is entering the fray. For centuries, the idea that we are the authors of our own actions, beliefs, and desires has remained central to our sense of self. We choose whom...

Our brains may be hardwired to look on the bright side   We like to think of ourselves as rational creatures. We watch our backs, weigh the odds, pack an umbrella. But both neuroscience and social science suggest that we are more optimistic than realistic. On average, we expect things to...

What’s the Big Idea? Are you in a rut? Instead of changing what you do, try changing how you think about it, says Roger Martin, a strategic advisor to global businesses and Dean of the Rotman School of Management. In 2000, growth at Proctor & Gamble had slowed to almost zero, and the...

Cognitive psychology is mapping the capabilities we are unaware we possess   Sigmund Freud popularized the idea of the unconscious, a sector of the mind that harbors thoughts and memories actively removed from conscious deliberation. Because this aspect of mind is, by definition, not...

Contrary to what many psychological scientists think, people do not all have the same set of biologically “basic” emotions, and those emotions are not automatically expressed on the faces of those around us, according to the author of a new article published in Current Directions...

An unexpected and unwanted breakup can cause considerable psychological distress. People report feeling as if they have been kicked in the stomach or blindsided and knocked down. Feelings of rejection and self-doubt are common, as is the feeling of being stuck and unable to let go, even when...

I’ve this piece on the Guardian’s Cif Belief asking about compassion, and tying in with The School of Life’s compassion sermon tomorrow… Compassion is like happiness. Obviously a great good. And yet, I think it is also like happiness in another way. Its realisation is...

You know, all those people comprising your in-real-life social circle, which today seems more and more tied up (see: submersed) in your digital social network. And I’m not talking about your friends simply being a bunch of weirdos, though that may very well be true. I’m talking more about...

Life Is Written All Over Your Face An expert in Chinese Face Reading, Jean Haner, teaches people how to read their inner nature! She helps people align with their true selves. “The same qualities that reveal the state of your body also have parallels in your emotions. Your face is a...

How do humans separate sarcasm from sincerity? Research on the subject is leading to insights about how the mind works. Really In an episode of “The Simpsons,” mad scientist Professor Frink demonstrates his latest creation: a sarcasm detector. “Sarcasm detector? That’s a really useful...

Struggling to make your mind up? Interpret your gut instincts to help you make the right choice Decision-making was supposed to have been cracked by science long ago. It started in 1654 with an exchange of letters between two eminent French mathematicians, Blaise Pascal and Pierre Fermat....

In the industrialised world, roughly 1 person in every 25 has severe mental disorder, and nearly half of us will experience some kind of mental illness during our lives. Many conditions, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, as well as developmental conditions like autism, are at least...

How do we perceive someone we’ve only just met? How do we judge him, assign him to some sort of category in our mind, explain to ourselves what he is and what he is likely to be? In “The Adventure of the Norwood Builder​,” Dr. Watson demonstrates an approach that we are all too likely...

When we look around us, what is it that we see? Do we see things as they are, or do we at once, without thinking, begin to interpret? Take the simple example of a wine glass. All it is is a transparent object that holds a liquid–which we know by experience should be wine. But if we’re in a...

The Misconception: You do nice things for the people you like and bad things to the people you hate. The Truth: You grow to like people for whom you do nice things and hate people you harm. Benjamin Franklin knew how to deal with haters. Born in 1706 as the eighth of 17 children to a...