Emotions are coordinated states that help the brain and body respond to events that matter. Fear prepares an organism to detect and escape danger, anger can support confrontation, sadness may redirect attention toward loss, and joy can reinforce rewarding relationships…
Behavioral neuroscience is the scientific study of how the brain, spinal cord, nerves, hormones, genes, and other biological systems contribute to behavior. It examines how biological activity gives rise to perception, emotion, motivation, learning, memory, movement, sleep, social interaction, and…
Childhood summers can seem almost endless, while adult years appear to vanish between birthdays, holidays, and unfinished plans. The calendar has not changed, yet many people feel that time moves faster with age. A month that once seemed like a…
Ghosting occurs when someone abruptly ends communication without offering an explanation and then ignores attempts to reestablish contact. It is most commonly associated with online dating, but it also happens in friendships, family relationships, professional networks, and workplaces. Unlike a…
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, usually called EMDR, is a psychotherapy approach developed to help people process traumatic memories and reduce the distress attached to them. It is best known as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, but it has…
Global Workspace Theory is one of the most influential scientific theories of consciousness. It tries to explain why some information in the brain becomes conscious while most information remains unconscious. At any moment, the nervous system processes an enormous amount…
Humans love sports because sports concentrate many of the deepest forces in human nature: play, competition, belonging, skill, beauty, risk, emotion, identity, and story. A game is never only a game. It is a structured drama in which bodies, rules,…
The difference between an introvert and an extrovert is one of the most familiar ideas in personality psychology, yet it is also one of the most misunderstood. In everyday language, introverts are often described as shy, quiet, private, or reserved,…
Psychoanalysis is one of the most influential and controversial movements in the history of psychology. Founded by Sigmund Freud in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, psychoanalysis changed how people think about the mind, childhood, dreams, desire, trauma, sexuality,…
Video games are addictive for some people because they combine reward, challenge, identity, social belonging, progress, escape, and control into an experience that the brain finds unusually compelling. Unlike many passive forms of entertainment, games respond to the player. They…
Cognitive dissonance is one of the most important concepts in modern psychology because it explains a strange feature of human behavior: people often protect their beliefs even when those beliefs conflict with evidence, values, or actions. A person may know…
Overthinking is one of the most common ways the human mind turns against itself. A person replays a conversation for hours, analyzes a text message from every possible angle, imagines future disasters, questions past choices, or becomes trapped in endless…