Psychology Archives

Taking Advice From Others: Why People Avoid It

Is taking advice from others a good idea? Do you shrug off advice given to you by friends and family? Studies have shown that making decisions based on your own memories often leads to poor decision-making and unhappiness. However, social psychologist Daniel Gilbert says that taking advice from others can help you overcome your bias and faulty memories. Unfortunately, many ignore the advice of others for two main reasons. Here’s why people tend to ignore advice from others.

Perceiving Reality: We All Use a Distorted Lens

Are you perceiving reality accurately, or do you have blind spots in your perception? Does everybody perceive the world in the same way? According to Harvard professor and social psychologist Daniel Gilbert, we all are perceiving reality through a distorted lens. Gilbert says that your brain fabricates your present reality by filling in visual and aural gaps in your perception with assumed information—and by interpreting present events in a way that’s advantageous to you. Here are the two fabrications that most people make about reality.

The Most Important Relationship Advice for Men

Are you seeking ways to strengthen your relationship? What is the most important relationship advice for men? Because men and women handle situations differently, it’s difficult for men to understand what a woman wants from them. This causes unnecessary confusion that can ruin relationships. Luckily, there are many people out there who have written books tailored to giving relationship advice for men to apply to their struggling love lives. Here’s the most important relationship advice for men, according to experts.

Imagining the Future: Why It Increases Happiness

Why does imagining the future increase happiness? Why do fabrications of the future tend to look more positive than the past or present? In his book Stumbling on Happiness, social psychologist Daniel Gilbert explores how and why your brain attempts to fabricate the future. He also discusses the limitations the brain encounters while trying to do so and how it overcomes them. Here’s how and why your brain imagines the future.

The Top 3 Reasons Why People Make Bad Choices

Why do people continue to make bad choices despite tons of advice on how to avoid them? How does your fabricated reality lead you to make poor decisions? Daniel Gilbert, the author of Stumbling on Happiness, has a theory about why this happens. Gilbert believes that your brain fabricates beliefs about your past, present, and future that don’t always align with reality. Gilbert’s theory is that this fabricated reality leads you to make decisions about the future that aren’t conducive to happiness. Here are the reasons people make bad choices, according to social psychologist Daniel Gilbert.

How to Judge a Personality Based on Little Information

What’s the most effective way to size up someone’s personality? How much information do we really need to accurately size up a person’s qualities? When it comes to reading personalities, we really don’t need much information. In fact, too much information can obscure the bigger picture with irrelevant details. Taking a “thin slice”—an extremely small segment of information about a person’s life—can lead to very accurate judgments about their personality. Here’s why “thin-slicing” is the best way to judge a personality.

The Role of the Unconscious in Insight Problem-Solving

What’s an “insight problem”? How do you solve such a problem? An insight problem is a problem that requires a fundamental shift in perspective in order to arrive at the solution. Oftentimes, the solution to an insight problem comes out seemingly out of nowhere in an “Aha! moment” fashion. In 1931, psychologist Norman Maier investigated how we arrive at solutions to insight problems in his famous Two-String Problem experiment. Here’s what he found.

What’s a Short Squeeze? Piggly Wiggly & GameStop

What’s a short squeeze? Who profits? Who loses? Making the case that people are the stock market’s most volatile component, John Brooks recaps how a man from Memphis named Clarence Saunders “cornered” his own company’s stock, meaning he obtained enough shares to give him the power to manipulate its price. It wasn’t a calculated move on his part; it was a reaction to Wall Street speculators who had planned an attack on his company, a chain of supermarkets called Piggly Wiggly. The affair serves as an interesting illustration of a short squeeze. Continue reading to learn about the Piggly Wiggly

Why Your Vision for the Future Is Wrong

Do you have a vision for the future? Do you make present-day decisions based on how you think you’ll feel later? Social psychologist Daniel Gilbert explains in his book Stumbling on Happiness that, when you make life choices based on how you assume you’ll feel in the future, you tend to make poor choices. Your first mistake is assuming that you’ll feel the same in the future as you do now. Here’s why people tend to make choices they regret in the future.

Personal Preferences: Why Do We Like What We Like?

Why do we like what we like? How do we determine our own preferences? Are our judgments about our own likes and dislikes always accurate? We’re good at making fast judgments about what we do and don’t like. But, surprisingly, sometimes these snap judgments about our own preferences can be inaccurate. Here’s why your judgments about what you do and don’t like may not reflect your actual preferences.