How well do you know yourself? You may know your favorite food, what type of clothes you like, your favorite holiday destination, your body weight, and even how you react in certain situations. But is that all? Do you know how your mind works? Do you know how your mind influences your mood, behavior, and actions?
If you want to know yourself better, then you’ve come to the right place. These fun psychological facts will help to make your life smoother and enable you to get better in everything in your life, from your career, relationships to self development.
- Human needs drive us
As humans, all of us are motivated to strive hard and move forward by 6 fundamental human needs: love, growth, significance, contribution, certainty and uncertainty. These human needs are invisible forces which drive our thoughts, emotions, behavior and actions. - Stress is infectious
Stress can be highly contagious. Research by the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences and the Technische Universität Dresden revealed that we can feel stressed by being around someone who is stressed. This is why you need to be careful about who you spend your time with. - Size of information matters
We want to know and learn different things but only a little bit at a time. It is easier for us to process and remember bite-sized chunks of information. We can easily remember 3-4 pieces of material at any given time and anything more than that will be lost. However, if the size of information is smaller than that, then we will crave more. - Rejection is painful
Our mind experiences rejection as actual pain. A recent research by the University of Michigan Medical School has found that our brain uses the same methods to cope with social rejection as it does to cope with physical pain. - Loss is more powerful than gain
Psychologically, we feel twice as bad when we lose something valuable to us, emotionally or financially, than how happy we felt when we gained it. - Don’t make your goals public
Announcing your goals to others makes you less likely to achieve them due to loss of motivation. Contrary to popular belief, sharing your goals on social media or otherwise, satisfies your identity and prevents you from pursuing your goals, studies confirmed. A study by Peter Gollwitzer, professor of psychology in the Psychology Department at New York University, found publicly announcing goals makes us less accountable and lose motivation to achieve them. - Night owls are risk-takers
If you prefer to stay up, then it indicates that you’re a risk-taker. Studies have found that night owls tend to take more risks in career, relationships, and life than early birds. A new study published in the journal Evolutionary Psychology found women who stay up late are more prone to take as many risks as men. - Multitasking is an illusion
Despite what you may think, you cannot multitask. It is a fact that your mind can only focus on one task at a time. Although there are few exceptions to physical activities like walking. Studies have revealed that only 2.5% of individuals can effectively multitask while the rest of us falsely believe we can do multiple complex tasks simultaneously. - Love is like OCD
Biochemically, romantic love is almost indistinguishable from severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. This was confirmed by a study titled ‘Alteration of the platelet serotonin transporter in romantic love’ published in Psychological Medicine conducted by Donatella Marazziti from the University of Pisa and University of California San Diego. - Internet trolls are narcissistic
Do you like trolling online? Now science claims internet trolls might be psychopathic, machiavellian, sadistic and even narcissistic. A new psychology study by Erin Buckels of the University of Manitoba has revealed that there are significant correlations between personality traits known as the Dark Tetrad (sadism, psychopathy, narcissism & machiavellianism) and people who engage in online trolling behavior. - Phantom Vibration Syndrome
Do you ever feel your phone vibrating in your pockets only to find out it’s not? Well, this is known as the Phantom Vibration Syndrome and over 68% of mobile phone users feel their phone vibrating when, in reality, it’s not. In fact, the percentage is even higher in undergraduates, as 90% of them have experienced phantom vibrations according to a new study by Dr. Robert Rosenberger, assistant professor at Georgia Institute of Technology. - Swearing keeps you honest
Is the F-bomb your favorite verbal weapon? Do you love swearing? Then you just might be a straightforward, honest person. A study, published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, found that individuals who like swear words and use them frequently are more likely, to be honest, and lie less often. - Expertise makes us arrogant
Believing that we’re exceptionally talented at something makes us less humble, opinionated, and close-minded. A new study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology revealed that feelings of expertise can make us more dogmatic, assertive, intolerant and resistant towards new concepts and ideas. - Grass is green on the other side of social media
We tend to believe that other people on social media are living a better, more satisfying, and active life than we are. A new study, by Sebastian Deri, a researcher at Cornell University, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that most of us unfairly compare our lives in every way to others on social media and generally believe they are living a happier & more exciting life.
