Psychology Archives

How to Stimulate Creative Decision-Making

What is the most effective way to stimulate the creative process? How does introducing constraints help you come up with more creative ideas? You’d think that the best way to come up with a creative solution is to brainstorm as many options as you can. While the brainstorming strategy is good, it may not always be viable. In some cases, the problem is having too many options with none being appealing. If that’s the case, try eliminating options. Here’s how eliminating options can help stimulate creative-decision making.

Anxiety Is a Habit—And It Needs to Be Broken

What is anxiety? Why is anxiety a habit? In Unwinding Anxiety, Dr. Judson Brewer explains that anxiety should be seen as a bad habit. This is because it creates a vicious cycle of behaviors that is difficult to break. Continue reading to learn why anxiety is a habit.

Martin Seligman’s Learned Optimism: Overview

What is Martin Seligman’s Learned Optimism book about? What are the most important takeaways from the book? Martin Seligman wrote Learned Optimism after extensively studying what causes people to feel powerless in life. The book primarily teaches readers why pessimism can lead to mental health problems and how to escape a pessimistic mindset. Read on for a brief overview of Martin Seligman’s book Learned Optimism, including the key takeaways.

Rewarding Good Behavior: Is It Helping or Harming Kids?

Should you reward children’s good behavior while punishing bad behavior? Does rewarding good behavior help or harm kids in the long run? Author Alfie Kohn cautions that it’s easy for parents to forget about long-term goals when busy or overwhelmed, instead shifting their focus to whether or not a child is being “good” or “bad” at any given moment. Kohn says creating a system of rewards and punishments leads to potentially harmful outcomes in children. Read on to learn Kohn’s advice about rewarding good behavior, including his examples of rewards for children.

The Interoceptive Sense: A Little-Known Yet Powerful Tool

What is the interoceptive sense, according to psychology? Why is your interoceptive sense important? How can you strengthen it? The interoceptive sense is a powerful tool for understanding and coping with your own and others’ emotions, according to neuroscientist and psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett. Barrett believes this little-known sense impacts your mental wellbeing more than most people realize. Read on for Barrett’s definition of the interoceptive sense, including why it’s important to strengthen it.

Unwinding Anxiety: Book Overview & Takeaways

What is the book Unwinding Anxiety about? What are the main takeaways of the book? In Unwinding Anxiety, Brewer explains how anxiety becomes a habit and how it spawns additional habits that only make things worse. Brewer shows why mindfulness succeeds where traditional methods like willpower, substitution, and avoidance fail. Read below for a brief overview of Brewer’s book Unwinding Anxiety.

How Do You Get Anxiety? Through a Habit Loop

How do you get anxiety? How does anxiety become a habit? Unwinding Anxiety by Dr. Judson Brewer suggests anxiety is a habit loop. To understand how to break the cycle of anxiety, you first have to understand how anxiety works as a habit loop. Let’s look at how anxiety forms as a habit.

Emotional Granularity: How It Affects Your Whole Life

What is emotional granularity? Why do psychologists say it’s so important? How can you improve your emotional granularity? Neuroscientist and psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett says that emotional granularity is your ability to understand and differentiate specific emotions. People with high emotional granularity are able to better regulate and cope with stress and other negative emotions, according to Barrett. Read on for a more detailed definition of emotional granularity, plus how to improve it, according to Barrett.

What Can Anxiety Lead To? Dangerous Behavioral Loops

What can anxiety lead to? How are alcoholism and substance abuse caused by anxiety? According to Dr. Judson Brewer in Unwinding Anxiety, our brains rely on a basic behavioral cycle to learn. If this cycle is started by a negative behavior (such as anxiety), it can lead to even worse behaviors. Keep reading to learn what types of behaviors anxiety can lead to.

Hidden Motives: Recognizing the Elephant in the Brain

How can you determine the true motives behind behaviors? How can you become less selfish and purer in your own motives? In The Elephant in the Brain, Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson argue that human behavior is driven by selfish motives hidden behind altruistic pretexts. They call these selfish motives the “elephant in the brain.” If we learn to recognize these “elephants,” we can improve our individual behaviors and our social institutions. Continue reading for some tips on recognizing hidden motives in yourself and others.