Presence of Mind

Understanding environmental and other social problems.

Shawn M. Burn Ph.D.

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A Cheap Way to Restore Your Attention and Focus

Trouble focusing and resisting the unhealthy temptations? Modern life, including our smartphones, can cause cognitive fatigue. We can restore ourselves with green experiences.

When You Feel Blue About the Environment, Act Green

If you're like most people, you display a pro-environmental concern-behavior gap. Thinking about your "gap" and upping your "green game" provides hope and can inspire others.

Adult Child Caregivers and the Autonomy-Safety Dialectic

Helping in ways that respect others' personal choices and freedom is always important, but it's a minefield when you're trying to help parents who have aged into disability.

5 Essential Rules for Relationships

Common dating mistakes can lead you into an unsatisfying, high-cost romantic relationship but it doesn't have to be that way.

Pandemic Risk Perceptions and the Biases That Influence Them

Frustrated that people don't evaluate pandemic risks that way you do? The psychology of risk perception may help you empathize while improving your pandemic risk assessment.

The Pandemic Has Stolen Our Personal Space Boundaries

Pandemic-related losses of control over personal space and privacy test our mental health and our relationships. Here’s how you can take some of your power back.

Observations About Online College Teaching in a Pandemic

A professor’s observations about online college teaching and online college students in a pandemic.

Be Someone’s Giving Rainbow This Holiday Season

Some people are more vulnerable to distress and less resilient in the face of catastrophic stressors. Your financial donations to relief organizations can boost others’ resilience.

What Does 'Allostatic Load' Mean for Your Health?

It's been a tough year and the cumulative effects of the physiological stress response can increase health risks. But you can increase your resilience.

Is Your Pet a Pandemic Stress Buster?

Psychological research explains how companion animals, like cats and dogs, can prevent and reduce the effects of pandemic stress.

Making Peace With Your Regret

Regret is painful and common, and sometimes debilitating. Fortunately, psychology offers some healthy ways to better manage your regrets.

Maybe It's Not So Silly to Cancel Brands Evocative of Racism

Cultural traditions that represent and contribute to social inequality are psychologically harmful. When we learn of this, we should willingly retire them. 

The Masks We Wear (and Don’t Wear)

The psychology of risk perception offers explanations for why people don’t take COVID-19 preventative actions, but these are cold comfort to the high-risk people stuck at home.

Do People Still Think of Men and Women as “Opposite Sexes”?

Interesting findings from a new study examining gender stereotypes over time finds that while gender roles have changed in the last 70 years, some gender stereotypes persist.

Social Support Rainbows for Pandemic Stress Storms

COVID-19 has created a stress pandemic. Fortunately, even the simplest forms of social support help people’s coping and resilience in the face of disaster.

COVID-19: What Is the "Right" Amount of Scared?

Preventative behaviors can reduce our own and others’ risk of illness from COVID-19, the flu, and the common cold. Psychology tells us how to scare people into doing them.

The Enabling Romantic Relationship: An Unhealthy Alliance

Here are 10 questions to ask if you’re wondering whether you’re in an enabling romantic relationship, and what you can do if you are.

Do You Need to Mind the Generation Gap?

Generation gaps are normal but we have to push back so they don’t promote ageism or harm cross-generational relationships and cooperation.

She's Crazy

Examining your anger through a gender lens makes it more likely that your anger will be an empowering tool instead of a source of new problems.

Whistleblowers and Rats

Psychological perspectives and research on whistleblowing are interesting to consider in the context of the Ukraine scandal.

When One Relationship Partner Is More Interested

The most interested/least interested relationship dynamic usually leaves both partners feeling badly. Here’s what to do if you’re in one of these relationships.

Hazing: When Rites of Passage Are Harmful Practices

It’s hazing season, and students’ desire to belong puts them at-risk for abuse and humiliation, injury, and even death. How can we inspire them to reduce hazing risks?

Healthy Helping for Family Caregivers of Senior Parents

Caring for senior parents can enrich and heal the parent-child relationship and improve a senior’s life quality, especially when adult children promote “assisted autonomy.”

Healthier Morals of Your “Failed” Relationship Stories

A relationship’s end or being single doesn’t mean you or your relationships are failures. Thinking so can lead you into trouble.

Is Empathy Your Greatest Strength and Greatest Weakness?

Does your empathy get you into helping trouble? Here's how to better manage your helping boundaries.

What to Do When Your Group’s Norms Make You Uneasy

What should we do when a group norm is harmful or unhealthy? Can we change it or should we distance or leave?

Is It Time to Stop Avoiding and Time to Talk?

Is an unaddressed issue coming between you and another? If so, it's time to use constructive confrontation strategies to enrich and save your relationship.

Sexual Harassment Dynamics Revealed in the McSally Case

Senator Martha McSally's (R-AZ) testimony about her sexual assault while serving in the Air Force illustrates common sexual harassment dynamics and points the way for change.

Defensiveness: An Enemy of Growth and Good Relationships

Defensiveness is an enemy of relationship satisfaction and longevity. Fortunately, there are ways to counteract it.

The Perils of Trump’s Autocratic Leadership Style

According to leadership theory and research, President Trump’s leadership style is a recipe for ineffective leadership.

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