Questions tagged [psychology]

Use this tag for questions about understanding, predicting, and changing the thoughts, emotions, and specifically psychological theories of behavior should use this tag. However, this excludes questions about specific claims, beliefs, or superstitions that would be better categorized under other, more specific tags, including behavior, brain, consciousness, superstition, esp, ghosts, religion, spirituality, energy, and meditation.

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Does Japan have 1.5 million people with severe social withdrawal?

Hikokomiri is a Japanese concept of severe social withdrawal: The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare defines hikikomori as a condition in which the affected individuals refuse to leave ...
user2638180's user avatar
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3 votes
1 answer
931 views

Is Rapid-onset gender dysphoria real?

Parent reports of adolescents and young adults perceived to show signs of a rapid onset of gender dysphoria. PLOS ONE describes ROGD as Conclusion Rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) describes a ...
pinegulf's user avatar
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24 votes
2 answers
6k views

Did Brené Brown claim her research showed that women are disappointed and disgusted by male vulnerability?

On the website Good Guys 2 Great Men, the author, Steve Horsmon, claims: Even the research by vulnerability expert Brene Brown confirms the current social conditioning of women to be disappointed and ...
user1605665's user avatar
  • 6,761
1 vote
1 answer
654 views

Do most people like to talk about themselves?

There are numerous articles about people loving to talk about themselves. However, my experience has been very different. Is "everyone's favorite topic is themselves" a myth?
Kevin Kostlan's user avatar
32 votes
2 answers
10k views

Did the Ontario College of Psychologists demand that Jordan P Peterson attend 'communication retraining'?

Jordan B Peterson tweets and is further quoted in The Post Millennial BREAKING: the Ontario College of Psychologists @CPOntario has demanded that I submit myself to mandatory social-media ...
pinegulf's user avatar
  • 6,542
2 votes
1 answer
607 views

Have 25% of all Christian Ex-Muslim converts received dreams or visions as a major factor in their conversion?

In an 2009 article, Why do Muslims come to Christ? Five case studies that underline the key factors as Living God in Christ, the living Word, and the living Body of Christ. by Salaam Corniche, there ...
John's user avatar
  • 153
3 votes
1 answer
597 views

Are people more likely to use the toilet stalls in the middle?

From Business Insider (and several other sources, albeit with debatable credibility): Research suggests you should avoid the middle stalls at all costs. A wealth of research shows that, given several ...
Shane's user avatar
  • 133
3 votes
2 answers
836 views

Do 1 in 4 of us experience mental health problems each year?

I have seen this quote before but today I received an internal company email with this quote. The ratio is also cited on page 7 of this 2014 report by Boris Johnson, then Mayor of London: In any ...
Angus Comber's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
887 views

Can *mild* stress cause dramatic loss in cognitive capabilities in humans?

From Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People) by Amy Gallo: “Research demonstrates that even mild instances of stress can cause a rapid and dramatic loss of prefrontal cognitive ...
Sridhar Ratnakumar's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
490 views

Is the serotonin theory of depression false?

A couple of weeks ago, this article was published on Nature https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0 I am just a layman when it comes to this subject and it is therefore difficult for me to ...
d-b's user avatar
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1 vote
1 answer
678 views

Did Francine Shapiro work as John Grinder's assistant and write an article on NLP eye accessing cues before she invented EMDR?

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a: is a form of psychotherapy developed by Francine Shapiro in the 1980s that was originally designed to alleviate the distress associated with ...
Christian's user avatar
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7 votes
0 answers
437 views

Do introverts and extroverts respond to dopamine and acetylcholine differently?

This Mind Brain Ed blog article is an example of one that quotes the book Quiet kids: Help your introverted child succeed in an extroverted world. by Christine Fonseca in claiming that introverts and ...
Water's user avatar
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11 votes
0 answers
638 views

To what extent does the reported phenomenon of needle spiking in nightclubs and bars exist?

There have been widespread reports in the UK of "needle spiking," where a person, usually a woman, claims to have been jabbed with something in a bar. This has received increasing attention, ...
thelawnet's user avatar
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7 votes
0 answers
639 views

Are US Marines deliberately kept under-supplied so that they would be more combat aggressive?

I watched a TV series named Generation Kill based on the experiences of an embedded reporter during the invasion of Iraq in the 2003. The US Marines in the series often complain about lacking ...
MattCat15's user avatar
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34 votes
1 answer
2k views

Is listening to lossy audio more tiring than lossless audio?

Multiple posts on Reddit (Ear fatigue and Audio quality, another comment) claim that it is more tiring to listen to music in a lossy format. The same claim is even repeated on the Wikipedia page for ...
cdknight's user avatar
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7 votes
1 answer
1k views

Is the story of the Fourth Cookie true?

This story of a psychology experiment was told as part of a Commencement Address by author Michael Lewis. It has been quoted in a number of places around the web. They began by grabbing students, as ...
Paul Johnson's user avatar
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13 votes
1 answer
4k views

Are young liberal women more likely to have a mental health condition?

Evie Magazine reports on a 2020 Pew Research study, in an article titled Over 50% Of Liberal, White Women Under 30 Have A Mental Health Issue. Are We Worried Yet? Conservatives label younger liberal ...
Lambert macuse's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
489 views

Does Gestalt Therapy effectively treat substance abuse?

Gestalt Therapy is a form of psychotherapy. Based on several descriptions it seems to be vague and fringe. A practicing psychotherapist told me: It is anything but scientific. It was popular in the '...
CJ Dennis's user avatar
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9 votes
0 answers
434 views

Do dogs who play with laser pointers get neuroses?

There are many anecdotes about "laser pointer syndrome" claiming that dogs suffer from something like OCD as a result of playing with laser pointers. Some vet clinics that propagate this ...
Arnon Weinberg's user avatar
20 votes
0 answers
2k views

Did Coinstar add a delay and fake noises because people didn't believe a machine could count coins quickly?

I saw a post on Reddit claiming that Coinstar machines are extremely fast at counting coins, but that the company had to introduce a delay and fake noises to the machines because customers didn't ...
pacoverflow's user avatar
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6 votes
1 answer
728 views

Do mass shooters tend to have been bullied as kids?

(Originally posted on Psychology.SE, it has been suggested that I post here instead) The media frequently claims that mass shooters are or were bullied as children. Does the scientific evidence back ...
user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
208 views

Does fast feedback result in greater expertise?

There are swathes of blogs and books promoting the notion that we should seek the quickest possible feedback to develop ours skill. The most prominent example I can think of comes from Daniel Kahneman'...
Rudi's user avatar
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3 votes
0 answers
392 views

Are more crash due to captain than first officer, because they ignore the first officer?

According to Outliers: The Story of Success from Malcolm Gladwell, more crashes are due to the captain than the first officer. He claims that the reason is that the captain ignore the warnings the ...
Kepotx's user avatar
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86 votes
1 answer
27k views

Did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle prank 12 men into fleeing their countries?

Purportedly, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — creator and author of Sherlock Holmes series — sent a telegram to 12 men “…of great virtue and respected in society.” The telegram read “Flee! All has been ...
Coomie's user avatar
  • 8,519
8 votes
2 answers
668 views

Do library fines affect return rates?

I just got an email from the Free Library of Philadelphia announcing that they no longer charge fines for material returned past the due date. The announcement, reproduced on their blog contained the ...
Chaim's user avatar
  • 303
4 votes
0 answers
851 views

Is the Dunning-Kruger effect reversed in Japan?

Wikipedia seems to claim so citing a single study: The study "Divergent Consequences of Success and Failure in Japan and North America: An Investigation of Self-improving Motivations and Malleable ...
Fizz's user avatar
  • 59.6k
39 votes
4 answers
17k views

Can social isolation kill babies?

According to the Wikipedia page for Language Deprivation Experiments, An experiment allegedly carried out by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the 13th century saw young infants raised without human ...
Frou-Frou Fox's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
699 views

Do video games lead to increased depression, anxiety and aggression?

Nicholas Kardaras is a addiction expert who was a professor at Stony Brook Medicine. In his 2016 NY Post article he claims that screen time is extremely harmful to children. The article intermingles ...
svavil's user avatar
  • 199
81 votes
4 answers
43k views

Does the US Armed Forces refuse to recruit anyone with an IQ less than 83?

In this video, Jordan Peterson claims the following. You can't induct someone into the Armed Forces in the US if they have an IQ of less than 83. He claims that the armed forces needs an accurate ...
Mason Wheeler's user avatar
13 votes
0 answers
844 views

Can John Gottman predict which couples will divorce with extremely high accuracy?

John Gottman (a prominent psychological researcher who has done extensive work on divorce prediction) has some very strong claims about his ability to predict divorce. The claim that led me to start ...
Dacromir's user avatar
  • 189
68 votes
3 answers
15k views

Is low emotional intelligence associated with right-wing and prejudiced attitudes?

Accordiing to Diply, Researchers in Belgium have linked a lack of emotional intelligence with right-wing political views, reports PsyPost. The study, published in Emotion, found that those who ...
Jerome Viveiros's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
396 views

Are Nobel laureates "at least 22 times more likely to partake as an amateur actor, dancer, magician or other type of performer"?

There was an opinion piece in the New York Times titled Do You Have to Be a Jerk to Be Great? in which David Brooks cites from a book called "Range" by David Epstein (emphasis added): In ...
Voo's user avatar
  • 111
11 votes
1 answer
2k views

Are fussy babies more intelligent?

When I talk about my fussy baby, many people tell me half-jokingly that fussy babies are on average more intelligent than "easy" babies. The idea is not unusual. See for example here: In fact, ...
Remi.b's user avatar
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49 votes
1 answer
10k views

Did depressed people far more accurately estimate how many monsters they killed in a video game?

In a Ted talk (YouTube), Andrew Solomon says There was a study I particularly liked, in which a group of depressed and a group of non-depressed people were asked to play a video game for an hour, ...
Rebecca J. Stones's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
1k views

Are 63% of Instagram users 'miserable'?

A few articles report this statistic that 63% of Instagram users are 'miserable': https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900022603/63-percent-of-instagram-users-report-being-miserable-heres-why.html ...
sciencectn's user avatar
13 votes
1 answer
653 views

Does a "desirable difficulty" in reading font affect memory retention?

Sans Forgetica is a font designed using the principles of cognitive psychology to help you to better remember your study notes. Sans Forgetica is more difficult to read than most typefaces – and that'...
user avatar
21 votes
2 answers
3k views

Did an American kindergarten teach children the alphabet using corporate logos?

On Reddit, Facebook and elsewhere, a picture went mildly viral claiming that in the USA, a kindergarten is using corporate logos to teach the alphabet: The posts or their comments do not include any ...
gerrit's user avatar
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5 votes
0 answers
309 views

Does keeping a "gratitude journal" improve your life?

Is the practice of noting down a few things that you are grateful for each day really help you feel better? A gratitude journal is a diary of things for which one is grateful. Gratitude journals are ...
ripper234's user avatar
  • 788
3 votes
0 answers
2k views

Do these five football players have exceptionally high IQs?

This Sokkaa.com article is one of many claiming that these handful of football players have exceptionally high IQs. Most of the football players in the world are evaluated based on physical health, ...
Elias's user avatar
  • 39
1 vote
0 answers
752 views

Are patterns of holes in surfaces surprisingly good clickbait?

The title is based on @Oddthinking's very helpful comment. From A Complete Taxonomy of Internet Chum1 published in The Awl (bold italics added by me): Bottom Left: Deeply Psychological Body Thing: ...
Barry Harrison's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
617 views

Does salt (or sodium) not make you thirsty?

This is from a Toronto MS thesis: High dietary sodium intake is hypothesized to increase food intake (FI), fluid intake and glycemic response. Two short-term randomized repeated-measures studies ...
Fizz's user avatar
  • 59.6k
5 votes
1 answer
623 views

Do recruiters hire people like themselves?

I have seen it quoted in various sources (e.g. this article in Forbes) that, in some way or another, people tend to unconsciously recruit people 'like themselves'. This can mean culturally, physically,...
Matt's user avatar
  • 153
4 votes
2 answers
683 views

Does eating nonsalty food with MSG make you thirsty?

Assume that you're thirsty after eating food that didn't taste salty while you were eating it. I know that MSG contains sodium. Quora posts and https://msgdish.com/msg-problems-and-answers/ still ...
user avatar
38 votes
4 answers
13k views

Is CEO the "profession" with the most psychopaths?

An opinion article in Time has this subheading: CEO is the profession with the most psychopaths. This may have been added by a headline editor though, because the article body doesn't flesh out ...
Fizz's user avatar
  • 59.6k
2 votes
0 answers
796 views

Do crows like to get dizzy? [closed]

In a lecture on the "Meaning Crisis", John Vervaeke, an assistant professor of cognitive science at the University of Toronto, and a colleague of Jordan B. Peterson, states: Caledonian crows will ...
Arnon Weinberg's user avatar
9 votes
0 answers
763 views

Do spoilers increase enjoyment of a story?

There are studies such as this where people report that spoilers increase enjoyment for narrative works. According to research by UC San Diego psychology professor Nicholas Christenfeld, spoilers ...
Jack Pan's user avatar
  • 249
13 votes
2 answers
4k views

Will rats given the ability to artificially stimulate their pleasure centers starve to death?

There's a widely-held belief [example] that a rat will starve itself to death if given a lever to press that will stimulate some "pleasure center" via electrodes implanted in its brain. Supposedly, ...
bubba's user avatar
  • 239
6 votes
1 answer
707 views

Are scammers using social media fake-news sharing behaviour to identify and target gullible people?

In the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica scandal I remember hearing - likely in an interview in a BBC Radio4 programme on the topic (unfortunately I don't recall more than that) - a claim that ...
timday's user avatar
  • 873
6 votes
0 answers
508 views

Are humans and chimps innately afraid of and attracted to reptiles or snakes?

Jordan peterson, a culturally popular psychologist, has made the following biological claim: Human beings and their closest biological relatives, chimpanzees, are innately afraid of and attracted ...
user avatar
41 votes
1 answer
12k views

Does vegetarian sweat smell better?

I've read this article online in a Belgian newspaper (in Dutch): Weet wat je zweet: deze 7 dingen wist je nog niet over zweten — HLN. Number 4 is saying that vegetarian sweat smells better then non ...
Lyrion's user avatar
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