The Essential Read

Party Survival Tactics for Introverts

By Sophia Dembling on November 20, 2009 in The Introvert's Corner

My husband and threw a small party, a brunch, the other day. An introvert throwing a party? Yep. I'm not antisocial. I like seeing friends and offering hospitality. And in some ways, throwing a party is easier than attending someone else's. Read More

The Myths of Intrinsic-Extrinsic Motivation

By Steven Reiss, Ph.D. on November 20, 2009 in Who We Are

What happens when a person is offered an incentive to do something the individual would have done anyway, without incentive? Back in 1975 Edward Deci, Mark Lepper, and their colleagues proposed that rewards undermine intrinsic motivation. In contrast, Len Sushinsky and I argued that the effects of rewards depend on how you use them. Read More

Aggressive Athletes: Out of Control and Unapologetic

By Jared DeFife, Ph.D. on November 18, 2009 in The Shrink Tank

University of New Mexico soccer player Elizabeth Lambert was called out by ESPN for punching, kicking, shoving, and throwing elbows against opponents after her team fell behind in a conference tournament game. In her most blatant attack, she yanked back an opponent's ponytail, ripping her to the ground.  She says she deeply regrets the incident.  Do you believe her? Read More

Procrastination, guilt, excuses and the road less traveled

By Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D. on November 18, 2009 in Don't Delay

"People seldom do what they believe in," said Bob Dylan. "They do what is convenient, then repent." I agree with the first part, but there's more to it than repentance, including: distraction, forgetting, trivialization, self-affirmation and denial of responsibility to name a few.

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The Secret for People Who Don’t Believe in VooDoo

By Robert Wilson on November 18, 2009 in The Main Ingredient

The latest fad in motivation is the Law of Attraction or more popularly The Secret after the motion picture and book by Rhonda Byrne. The Secret claims that the more intent you are in your wish for health, wealth, and friends, the faster the universe will act upon it. Is it real, or is it VooDoo science? Read More

The Problem with Dieting

By Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. on November 17, 2009 in The Science of Willpower

A recent study showed just how chronic dieting can turn someone into a food addict. Read More

You again! The role of significant others in our social interactions

By Art Markman, Ph.D. on November 17, 2009 in Ulterior Motives

Some patterns in our lives tend to repeat. You may meet a new person, and suddenly find that you talk as though you were back in college with them. Or, you may meet a new romantic interest, and you speak to them as if they were an old significant other. Or you my have a boss and you find yourself talking to him as if he was your father.

What is going on? Read More

CBT = Existentialism?

By Matthew Hutson on November 17, 2009 in Brainstorm

I've recently come to the conclusion that cognitive behavioral therapy, the empirically-demonstrated gold standard for treating depression and a host of other problems, necessitates a belief in existentialism, a philosophy holding that we live in a meaningless universe.  Read More

The Red Book: One Man's Turmoil

By Guest Blogger on November 16, 2009 in Brainstorm

By Dave Levitan Read More

How To Remember Things

By Alex Lickerman, M.D. on November 16, 2009 in Happiness in this World

Medical school is like entering a grocery store and memorizing the names of every product in the store, their number and location, every ingredient in every product in the order in which they appear on the food label, then doing the same thing in every grocery store in the city. Read More

Fair Play

By David Rock on November 15, 2009 in Your Brain at Work

Fairness is another primary threat or reward: the experience activates the same network that monitors real pain and pleasure. Read More

Why Do We Have Emotions?

By Ilana Simons, Ph.D. on November 14, 2009 in The Literary Mind

Mental illness often results from excess emotion. The overflow of emotion doesn't just drive mood disorders like Depression but fuels most psychological problems which are not strictly organic: phobias, anxiety, trauma, hoarding, obsessiveness, borderline personality disorder, and drug and alcohol abuse. Read More

How Saying No to Sex Can Help You Learn to Love It Again

By Debby Herbenick, Ph.D., M.P.H. on November 14, 2009 in The Pleasures of Sex

If you want to change your sex life for the better, learn how saying no can lead to more pleasurable sex and a libido boost. 

  Read More

Can't Control Your Eating?

By Alan Fogel on November 13, 2009 in Body Sense

Embodied Eating, Part 2: Why women are especially vulnerable to a loss of body sense around food. Read More

Eleven Myths of De-Cluttering.

By Gretchen Rubin on November 12, 2009 in The Happiness Project

One of my great realizations about happiness (and a point oddly under-emphasized by positive psychologists) is that outer order contributes to inner calm. Here’s a list of some myths of de-cluttering that make it harder to get rid of stuff. Read More

Deep Rationality

By Douglas Kenrick on November 12, 2009 in Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life

Radical changes are in store when Charles Darwin and Daniel Kahneman are properly introduced to one another. On the evolutionary view, what seems irrational at the surface level may be, on closer examination, deeply rational. Read More

The Lips Don't Lie

By Joe Navarro, M.A. on November 12, 2009 in Spycatcher

When it comes to revealing true feelings and emotions, our lips are invaluable. In relationships or at work, our lips reveal how we truly feel. Difficult to control or mask, lips are extremely accurate for assessing comfort and discomfort and remarkably for evincing deception. We may not say it, but our lips will convey it! Read More

Is humor ever not funny?

By Elana Premack Sandler, L.C.S.W., M.P.H. on November 11, 2009 in Promoting Hope, Preventing Suicide

"The Office" has gotten a lot of attention over the past week or so for its Halloween episode, which showed boss Michael Scott in a noose, sharing a particularly poorly worded suicide prevention message. Read More

Is sport a religion?

By Nigel Barber, Ph.D. on November 11, 2009 in The Human Beast

Psychologists are closing in on the conclusion that sport has many of the same effects on spectators as religion does. Here is Daniel Wann [2001], a leading sport psychologist at Murray State University, and his co-authors: Read More

Workplace Violence -- How to recognize its warning signals

By Katherine Crowley on November 10, 2009 in Workplace Whisperers

Are there warning signs that someone may be capable of workplace violence?  Shootings in Fort Hood and Olando, Florida could provide insight for future prevention. Read More

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