Darya Sinusoid

Darya’s love for reading started with fantasy novels (The LOTR trilogy is still her all-time-favorite). Growing up, however, she found herself transitioning to non-fiction, psychological, and self-help books. She has a degree in Psychology and a deep passion for the subject. She likes reading research-informed books that distill the workings of the human brain/mind/consciousness and thinking of ways to apply the insights to her own life. Some of her favorites include Thinking, Fast and Slow, How We Decide, and The Wisdom of the Enneagram.

Making Decisions Under Stress: Practice Makes Perfect

How does stress affect decision-making? How can you avoid making bad decisions in stressful situations? When you’re stressed, your brain’s ability to reason logically is impaired which can lead you to make bad decisions that you’ll likely regret when you come to your senses. However, sometimes you have no choice but to make a decision under stress. As with everything in life, making good decisions under stress takes practice. Here’s how you can practice making decisions under stress by rehearsing your responses to anticipated stressors beforehand.

Understanding the Priming Effect (Psychology)

What is priming? What are the different kinds of priming? In psychology, the priming effect occurs when exposure to a previous stimulus influences one’s reaction to the subsequent stimulus. Priming has been extensively researched in studies of a wide range of social and psychological phenomena, including memory, motivation, stereotyping, and prejudice. Learn about the psychology of priming.

Implicit Racial Bias: Can It Be Overcome?

What is implicit racial bias? How can implicit racial bias be challenged if, by definition, it “lives” in the unconscious? Implicit racial bias refers to racist beliefs, attitudes, and stereotypes that people harbor without their awareness. In other words, implicit bias is unconscious. Because our unconscious minds are extremely suggestible, we can address our unconscious biases through priming. Keep reading to learn about implicit racial bias, how it’s detected, and how it can be overcome.

The Left Brain Interpreter and Sense-Making

What is the “left brain interpreter”? How does the brain assimilate new information? The left brain interpreter is a neurophysiological concept that refers to the brain’s process of making sense of new information by relating it to existing knowledge. Although the concept was based on the studies of split-brain patients—patients who had their corpus callosum severed—it applies to neurotypical populations at large. Keep reading to learn about the left brain interpreter and its role in sense-making.

Implicit Association Test: The Psychology of Bias

What is the Implicit Association Test (IAT)? How does the IAT measure bias? In psychology, the Implicit Association Test (IAT) is an assessment designed to gauge mental representations that are outside conscious control. It is supposed to measure unconscious bias by measuring how fast a person can assign descriptors to certain categories (e.g. race or gender). Learn about the Implicit Association Test, how it works, and what it’s supposed to measure.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

What is Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink about? What can Gladwell teach you about decision-making? In his book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005), Malcolm Gladwell argues that snap decisions made on the fly could be as good as decisions made through deliberate, rational thinking. Blink delves into how and why we make the gut decisions we do, when it’s unsafe to trust our guts, and what we can do to make all our snap judgments smarter, less biased, and more efficient. Here’s an overview of Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.

How Does Intuition Work?—Understanding the 6th Sense

How to Visualize the Life You Want to Have in 3 Steps

Have you ever been in a situation where you knew the right thing to do but couldn’t explain why or how you arrived at that knowledge? How does intuition work? Intuition is a concept that seems obscure and mysterious because we don’t understand the mechanics behind it. But just because we can’t pinpoint the exact chain of reasoning behind an intuitive judgment or decision does not mean intuition is a fluke. Keep reading to learn how intuition works.

Predicting Divorce: Signs to Look Out For

Is it possible to predict divorce? What are the most telling signs the relationship won’t last? The signs of an impending divorce are often evident from casual interactions of partners, even at the beginning of a relationship. Psychologist John Gottman has identified these signs by conducting observations of interactions of couples, predicting divorce with impressive accuracy. Here’s what he found.

Blink: The Psychology of Snap Judgments

How accurate are snap judgments? What are the dangers inherent in making snap judgments—sizing up a situation based on superficial information, without much conscious deliberation? Snap judgments can go wrong for a few reasons: First, we can be overly superficial when making a judgment. Second, we can fail to recognize when our conscious and unconscious attitudes don’t match, which leads us to make decisions that are inconsistent with our conscious beliefs. And third, we’re far more susceptible to the effects of priming than we think. Learn about the psychology of snap judgments and how they can go wrong.

Blink Quotes by Malcolm Gladwell (With Analysis)

Are you looking for Blink quotes by Malcolm Gladwell? What are some of the most noteworthy passages worth revisiting? We usually think of snap judgments as lazy, superficial, and probably wrong. But are they really? In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell argues that snap judgments can be just as good as—or even better than—the decisions that we make when we analyze a situation carefully. Below is a selection of quotes from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell.