Psychology Archives

Games People Play: The Psychology of Mind Games

What is Eric Berne’s Games People Play about? Why does Berne mean by “games” in the context of social interaction? In his book Games People Play, Dr. Eric Berne says that mind games go back to childhood. Children learn mind games from their parents and then use them later in life. There are often patterns associated with these games that are so deeply ingrained that the player often doesn’t realize what they’re doing. Here’s a brief overview of Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships by Dr. Eric Berne.

How Much Money Is Enough?—Greed Is a Fine Line

How much money is “enough”? Is there a point at which you should stop taking risks and enjoy what you have? People who say “money doesn’t buy happiness” are wrong—money can make you happier, up to a point. However, once you make enough to live a comfortable life, money can become a trap. Some people become so greedy in their desire to keep making more that they risk losing everything they have. Here’s how to be happy with having “enough.”

Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers—Book Review

What is Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers about? What is the key message to take away from the book? Outliers is a collection of stories, each exploring a variety of external factors that contribute to success. Malcolm Gladwell argues that extraordinarily successful people—or outliers—reached that point not just because of hard work and determination, but also thanks to luck, timing, and opportunities. He challenges the notion of self-made success through anecdotes and insight from various disciplines, including history, sociology, and psychology. Here’s our book review of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

The Psychology Behind Mind Games: Case Study

How can you tell someone is playing a mind game on you? What are the different types of mind games people play? Mind game psychology is complex because there are many different types of games people play on each other. In his book Games People Play, psychiatrist Eric Berne provides a framework for analyzing mind games and understanding why people get tangled up in negative interactions. In this article, you’ll learn how to analyze ming games according to Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis framework.

How to Use Focused & Diffuse Thinking to Learn

What’s the difference between focused and diffuse thinking? How can you leverage these two modes to maximize learning? Authors Barbara Oakley and Terrence Sejnowski offer a number of tips for enhancing your learning that are based on your brain’s ability to alternate between different modes of thinking. They assert that your brain operates in two separate modes, each of which contributes to learning and problem solving in different ways. They call these two modes “focused thinking” and “diffuse thinking.” Read on to learn these ways of improving your learning ability.

How to Give Constructive Feedback: Be Positive

What is the key to giving effective constructive feedback? Should you emphasize positive or negative aspects of someone’s performance when delivering feedback? According to Rolf Dobelli, the author of The Art of Thinking Clearly, people better accept and implement feedback that is framed in a positive than a negative way. This is because of the psychological phenomenon called the feature-positive effect. Here’s how to give constructive feedback, according to Rolf Dobelli.

Common Decision-Making Biases & How to Spot Them

Are your decisions rooted in rationality? What are some of the most common biases in decision-making? You probably think of yourself as a rational and logical human being who makes decisions based on logic and sensibility. However, your decision-making may not be as logical as you’d like to believe. Logical fallacies affect everyone, are extremely difficult to avoid, and can hinder your decision-making ability. Keep reading to learn about some of the most common decision-making biases, how to recognize them, and how to work around them.

Incentives: The Psychology of Motivation

How do incentives change behavior? What is the danger in offering incentives to encourage better performance? Incentives inspire hard work and better cooperation. But there is also a dark side to incentivizing the desired behavior: People will perform the behavior, but they’ll strive for those incentives however suits them best, even if their actions contradict the principle behind the incentive. Keep reading to learn about the psychology of incentive manipulation and how to set effective incentives.

Is 10,000 Hours of Practice Enough to Master a Skill?

Can practice override talent? Is it true that to master a skill, you need to put in 10,000 hours of practice? Although we tend to think of practice as an equalizer, having the time to practice enough to master a skill is a luxury afforded only to the privileged. In fact, there are studies that show that the most masterful individuals in their fields have practiced their craft for at least 10,000 hours, which averages nearly 20 hours every week for 10 years. Here’s why practice is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to skill mastery.

Transactional Analysis: Games, Exchanges, Ego States

What is a transaction in the context of Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis? What are the three ego states? “Transactions” are Eric Berne’s “basic unit” of social interaction. We gain social recognition through transactions, and we can analyze transactions by looking at the ego states that are involved (the parent, the adult, and the child). In this article, we’ll define transactions and cover the main types of games in Transactional Analysis.