Are You Who You Pretend To Be? The Social Media Masquerade.
Do you know the difference between you and your online persona? Do you believe you are who you pretend to be? You probably know that you’re not quite as filtered…
Share
Psychology
115 posts
Evolutionary Psychology: Predictively Powerful or Riddled with Just-So Stories?
This essay is part of a series on the value of evolutionary approaches to psychology. Part 1 clears away seven key misconceptions. Part 2 shows why evolution is necessary for…
Share
Does Darwinism Conflict with Religion?
When my dog chases the ball, does she do so with purpose? Or is she more like a windup toy, going through the motions, along with all the other atoms…
Share
Self-Defeating Polls and the Uncertainty of Predictions
A Californian plans to vote after work in what she believes to be a close presidential election … The day is rainy and as she approaches the polling place she…
Share
Mental Health and Homicide: Progressive Ideology Meets Political Expediency
Mentally disturbed people commit over a hundred homicides every year in Britain. In simplified reasoning, the motives for such killings are beyond comprehension—to a court of justice and perhaps to…
Share
Why Facts Are Overrated
Although the information age is said to have begun in the latter part of the twentieth century, one could argue that we are now experiencing its peak, since almost everyone…
Share
Feelings Don’t Care About Your Facts: The Psychological Roots of Ideology
Recent political commentary has observed a dissociation from traditional left–right political views and a move towards the extreme ends of the political spectrum. The increasing chasm between the major parties…
Share
Thinking With Hypotheses: Better Reasoning for a Storytelling Species
Humans are a storytelling species. We explain concepts using analogous stories; we automatically assign meaning and purpose to patterns; and we find anecdotes particularly moving. Our heuristics—the rules of thumb…
Share
Cancel Culture and the Alt-Right: Dark Psychological Profiles in Politics
The dark triad is the term used to describe the constellation of three maladaptive and socially undesirable traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy. Machiavellian individuals are cold and cynical, often using…
Share
Ideological Theory of Mind: How to Stop the Culture Wars
As someone who spends most of my time studying and attempting to accurately explain an ideology—Critical Social Justice—I myself do not believe to have much merit, I find myself coming…
Share
The Benefits of Loneliness
In 2017, then British prime minister Theresa May appointed Tracey Crouch to the newly created position of Minister for Sport, Civil Society and Loneliness. Crouch became the head of an…
Share
Why Critical Social Justice Activism Could Increase Suicide Risk
No death impacts others in the way a suicide does. With a death by suicide come shame, guilt and many questions—the most prominent of which is why? But sometimes we…
Share
A Therapist’s Plea for Freedom of Speech
To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.—Frederick Douglass. The single best predictor of a positive…
Share
The Why is Not the Same as the How: Levels of Analysis and Scientific Progress in Psychology
The emerald-colored jewel wasp (Ampulex compressa) parasitizes the common cockroach with a sophistication that beggars the imagination. Here’s how the morbid scene unfolds. The wasp begins by injecting a venomous…
Share
The Purity of the Shitstorm
Photo by Kat Jayne Social media is messy: a raucous collision of strident opinions, banal brunch pictures, trolls, nudes, reactionaries, revolutionaries, memes and boomers credulously reposting chain letters. This mess is…
Share
Choosing the Final Freedom: Suicide in the Past and Present
Photo by Mohamed Nohassi During the Second World War, my mother’s sister was a liaison officer in the resistance movement. She performed very important clandestine work. As she said herself, she…
Share
The Debate Over Psychology’s Covid-19 Response
Although each of us has experienced the Covid-19 pandemic differently—what is a mere inconvenience for some has been utter agony for others—underlying our unique experiences are shared cognitive tendencies that…
Share
Wisdom vs. Authority in Science
The story of Abraham and Isaac is probably the most shocking example of submissiveness to authority in the written records of our civilization. However, this tragedy is rarely used as…
Share