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- Excessive phone use linked to problems with productivity, relationships, health https://cognitiontoday.com/2020/08/phone-addiction-coping-solutions-research-statistics/ 16 comments
- The ChatGPT Effect: How advanced AI changes us. We are forced to search for assumptions (instead of raw information) and ask questions more than find answers for innovation, creativity, and progress because ChatGPT readily offers answers. https://cognitiontoday.com/the-chatgpt-effect-how-advanced-ai-changes-us/ 11 comments philosophy
- Memes are advanced emotions and outsourced thought patterns + they protect mental health. Using them isn't a waste; it's a reflection of human evolution. https://cognitiontoday.com/psychology-of-memes-advanced-emotions-outsourced-thoughts-mental-health/ 17 comments anthropology
- Metacognition, commonly called “thinking about thinking,” is a central component of our conscious awareness. Along with its close relatives, “metamemory” and “meta-skills,” it affects the subjective human experience. https://cognitiontoday.com/metacognition-metamemory-meta-skills/ 5 comments philosophy
- Much research shows therapy can be less helpful or even detrimental to some clients, while money, self-help, placebos, and medication can be more helpful in solving well-being and quality of life problems. Psychotherapy, on the whole, doesn't appear to meet the goals it sets. https://cognitiontoday.com/is-therapy-worth-it-side-effects-of-therapy-and-how-to-heal-on-your-own/ 9 comments philosophy
- To counter pseudoscience or conspiracy theories, focus on the believer’s psychological needs, and invite science through the Latitude of Acceptance (range of acceptable ideas). It’s not about the strength of your evidence; it’s about how you persuade. https://cognitiontoday.com/how-to-counter-pseudoscience-its-not-about-the-evidence/ 87 comments philosophy
- Humans sometimes use heuristics to balance out disproportional causes and effects. If the effects are large, but the cause seems small, we ascribe more value to the cause by creating a conspiracy. https://cognitiontoday.com/why-we-justify-big-events-with-big-causes-proportionality-bias/ 157 comments philosophy
- When you want to counter pseudoscience, figure out why someone has a need to believe in it instead of providing evidence against it. Providing stark contradictory evidence can backfire because it polarizes. https://cognitiontoday.com/how-to-counter-pseudoscience-its-not-about-the-evidence/ 108 comments philosophy
- To persuade people to favor science over pseudoscience, one has to enter their latitude of acceptance – the range of acceptable ideas. Slowly shifting the range broadens the mind to accept things one typically rejects. To counter pseudoscience, focus on the believer's psychological needs. https://cognitiontoday.com/2020/10/how-to-counter-pseudoscience-its-not-about-the-evidence/ 4 comments philosophy
- A new study argues that children reason if an animal is owned or not based on how much control the owner has on the animal’s movement and how much freedom an animal has to escape. Children used principles of control and autonomy to assess if a living being is owned or not. https://cognitiontoday.com/2020/08/children-reason-autonomy-and-control-to-judge-animal-ownership/ 20 comments science
- A new study argues that children reason if an animal is owned or not based on how much control the owner has on the animal’s movement and how much freedom an animal has to escape. Children think animals that are free to move or escape are less owned than those that are fenced or caged. https://cognitiontoday.com/2020/08/children-reason-autonomy-and-control-to-judge-animal-ownership/ 4 comments science
- Self-construal is a concept that describes how you think about yourself, how you relate to others, and what your figurative decision-maker does. Self-construals affect environmental concern, happiness, rumination, and conversations, among other things. https://cognitiontoday.com/2020/07/self-construal-theory-social-psychology-finding-the-self-in-society/ 4 comments philosophy
- When members of a group identify too strongly with their group and believe the group's image is superior to other groups, it becomes "collective narcissism." Nationalism, blind patriotism, and extremist groups are examples of collective narcissism. This has negative effects on society. https://cognitiontoday.com/2020/07/collective-narcissism-nationalism-toxic-groups/ 296 comments philosophy
- Evidence shows that the default mode network is activated when we zone out, day-dream, detach from the external world or go into the mind-wandering zone which enables most types of spontaneous cognition such as creative cognition, musical earworms, rumination, and involuntary autobiographical memory https://cognitiontoday.com/2020/06/spontaneous-cognition-mind-wandering-default-mode-network-daydreaming-random-thoughts/ 9 comments cogsci
- Deliberate empathy can have negative consequences such as worsening in-group out-group relationships (and attitudes) and even cause emotional burnout. There appears to be a sweet spot where empathy is healthy, and beyond that it amplifies problems it tries to solve. https://cognitiontoday.com/2019/11/how-empathy-fails-us-in-group-out-group-negativity-emotional-burn-out/ 261 comments philosophy
- Studies show that the 'construal level theory' is a powerful framework for improving creative cognition & abstract thinking via the manipulation of psychological distance, levels of processing, and processing difficulty. https://cognitiontoday.com/2020/01/creative-cognition-construal-level-theory-psychological-distance/ 4 comments cogsci
- Social distancing and mental health have a number of interactions (loneliness, uncertainty) that people need to address during a pandemic. Psychological adjustment is hard but there are things we can do; starting with acceptance, following rules, and quality engagement. https://cognitiontoday.com/2020/03/psychology-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-social-distancing-mental-health-hypocognition/ 7 comments philosophy
- Aloneliness is a mismatch between the intention to spend time alone and the satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) of time spent alone. A high mismatch is linked to poor well-being but intentional solitude for peace and quiet is linked to improved well-being. https://cognitiontoday.com/2020/01/social-detoxing-and-solitude-alone-lonely-or-aloneliness/ 422 comments science
- New research shows that active procrastination may improve creativity and productivity even though active procrastinators delay work as much as passive procrastinators. They prefer time pressure, delay work on purpose, can meet deadlines, and believe pressure yields better results. https://cognitiontoday.com/2020/03/active-or-passive-procrastinating-on-purpose-may-boost-creativity-productivity/ 269 comments science
- Multiple studies show that the most distressing part of social media use is negative social cognition (comparison, idealistic self-presentation, FOMO) and risk factors like poor sleep, low self-esteem, poor body image. Aspects like depressive memes can be uplifting for depressed people. https://cognitiontoday.com/2019/08/effect-of-social-media-on-mental-health-well-being/ 3 comments science
- Belief in astrology and the paranormal is linked to threats to certainty, lack of perceived certainty, refining self-concept, schizotypy, and a need for conflict-reducing explanations for negative events in life. https://cognitiontoday.com/2019/08/people-believe-in-astrology-to-cope-with-stress-conflict/ 373 comments science
- A new wave of studies is finding the boundaries of empathy. Personally relevant emotions triggered by taking someone else's point of view (cognitive empathy) can lower our ability to recognize other's emotions. https://cognitiontoday.com/2020/01/empathy-for-similar-negative-experiences-disrupt-our-understanding-of-others/ 6 comments science
- According to new research (n=803), empathy for similar, relatable negative experiences disrupts our understanding of other's emotions. Specifically, the accuracy of recognizing negative emotions. https://cognitiontoday.com/2020/01/empathy-for-similar-negative-experiences-disrupt-our-understanding-of-others/ 4 comments science
- How Empathy Fails Us: In-group/Out-group Negativity & Emotional Burn-Out | Cognition Today https://cognitiontoday.com/2019/11/how-empathy-fails-us-in-group-out-group-negativity-emotional-burn-out/ 4 comments philosophy
- Multiple studies show that empathy (natural and deliberate) can backfire and further intergroup negativity, impair decision-making and cause emotional burn-out. Meta-stereotyping, defending in-group identity, poor allocation of resources, and predisposition to negative events explain these effects. https://cognitiontoday.com/2019/11/how-empathy-fails-us-in-group-out-group-negativity-emotional-burn-out/ 6 comments science
- Factors like poor sleep, cyberbullying, passive scrolling, neurotic traits, loneliness, and social comparison link social media and poor mental health. But, activities like entertainment, nurturing relationships, task updates can improve well-being https://cognitiontoday.com/2019/08/effect-of-social-media-on-mental-health-well-being/ 17 comments science
- People, metaphorically, "shoot the messenger" of bad news. They sometimes generate a dislike toward the bearer of bad news, but this dislike can be mitigated. https://cognitiontoday.com/2019/10/the-bearer-of-bad-news-is-disliked-here-is-how-you-deliver-it/ 22 comments science
- Social media gets a lot of bad rap when it comes to mental health. However, multiple new research studies show that social media use has both positive and negative effects on well-being. These effects depend on non-technological factors and the type of social media use. https://cognitiontoday.com/2019/08/effect-of-social-media-on-mental-health-well-being/ 6 comments science
- Just saw this on everything science and wanted to share with the lovely folks of r/books! https://cognitiontoday.com/2019/08/the-effect-of-reading-fiction-on-the-brain-do-books-increase-empathy/ 8 comments books
- According a small body of research, reading fiction creates lasting changes in the brain, promote empathy, and bring about changes in one's attitude. https://cognitiontoday.com/2019/08/the-effect-of-reading-fiction-on-the-brain-do-books-increase-empathy/ 14 comments books
- Bilingual people often mix 2 languages while speaking. This is called Code Switching. This happens because some words and contexts form a bridge between 2 languages and the brain shifts gears. Social and cognitive cues facilitate this change. https://cognitiontoday.com/2018/11/code-switching-why-people-mix-2-languages-together-while-speaking/ 171 comments linguistics
- When we hear a success story like how someone became a millionaire or went viral, we ascribe some cause to a number of things they did. However, we forget about the failure stories where people did the exact same thing. This is the survivorship bias - failure stories contain a lot of value. https://cognitiontoday.com/2017/04/what-you-need-to-know-about-success-stories-survivorship-bias/ 4 comments philosophy
- Intelligence is often misconstrued as a comparable number (IQ). That's only because IQ measurements aim to predict a global intelligence. But, there is another way to look at intelligence which is useful, practical, and holistic. https://cognitiontoday.com/2019/01/everyones-intelligence-is-unique-and-changeable-here-is-why/ 15 comments philosophy
- Listening to heavy metal music can be a healthy way to process anger and improve mental health. While rebellion is a core theme in metal, it does not amplify violent tendencies in humans. https://cognitiontoday.com/2019/03/the-social-psychology-of-heavy-metal-rock-music-research-on-metalheads/ 26 comments science
- Beauty and ugliness are complex constructs. While popular opinions blame media, research shows that we are born with the ability to have ugly & beauty biases. Moreover, natural language processing shows that ugliness is unrelated to attractiveness. https://cognitiontoday.com/2019/03/beautiful-science-of-ugliness-reveals-uncomfortable-truths-about-ugly-beauty-biases/ 5 comments science
- Am I Weird? Yes, You Are. And That's As Normal As You Can Be https://cognitiontoday.com/2018/12/am-i-weird-yes-you-are-and-thats-as-normal-as-you-can-be/ 6 comments philosophy
- Code-switching is when multilingual people switch between languages intuitively. Some words make more sense in a particular language's context too and that might promote shifting gears. https://cognitiontoday.com/2018/11/code-switching-why-people-mix-2-languages-together-while-speaking/ 12 comments linguistics
- It may be extremely difficult to overcome cognitive biases and informal thinking errors but here are a few tips based on the work of Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, and Rolf Dobelli https://cognitiontoday.com/2018/03/8-powerful-ways-to-overcome-thinking-errors-and-cognitive-biases/ 29 comments philosophy
- Code-switching: A probabilistic and cognitive framework to understand how and why multilingual people intuitively switch between 2 languages while speaking. https://cognitiontoday.com/2018/11/code-switching-why-people-mix-2-languages-together-while-speaking/ 8 comments linguistics
- 4 fundamental flaws in how people think: False dichotomies, mixing correlation & causation, anecdotes, and validation with the majority https://cognitiontoday.com/2018/12/4-thinking-flaws-you-should-avoid-to-become-more-objective-and-rational/ 79 comments philosophy