Why does the bystander effect happen? The bystander effect happens because in a group of people, everybody assumes that somebody else will be the one to act. There are many examples of the bystander effect. It has been given that name because when something happens, people just stand by and nobody acts. This can happen […]
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Do guilt and shame have a purpose? Shame and guilt serve to make people function more as a group and to follow the agreed social norms. Many of us spend a large portion of our lives weighed down with shame and guilt and we often wish that they were two emotions we didn’t need to
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What is survivorship bias? It is when researchers focus on the individuals that have passed a selection process, while forgetting those that have not. It is an error in logic. Survivorship bias doesn’t have to be about people who have survived, it can reference people or things that have survived a selection process. There are
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What is a black swan event? It is a completely surprising and unpredictable event that has major consequences. It is something that is as rare as a black swan. The phrase was first used in Rome in the 2nd century BC and its usage was to show that an event was as rare on Earth
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How does cold reading work? It is a method of reading a person you don’t know in order to get information. It is the opposite of hot reading, where the person already either knows the target or has a lot of information about them to start with. Cold reading is a method employed by psychics
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How do hallucinations happen? They are caused by a chemical imbalance or some kind of abnormality in the brain. All hallucinations are created by the sensory parts of our brain and they are basically firing without the stimulus. If you look at a dog, light is bouncing off the dog and entering your eyes. Your
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Watch on YouTube How do facial expressions work? There are 20 muscles in the face that can be moved in different combinations. There are two kinds of facial expressions: voluntary and involuntary. A lot of study has gone into reading facial expressions and there are many theories about whether they reveal inner thinking or not.
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What is Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy? It is a psychological illness where a parent or caregiver pretends their child is sick in order to get attention and sympathy. Munchausen Syndrome by proxy is technically known as Fabricated or Induced Illness (FII) in the UK or Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another (FDIA) in the USA. It
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Is a psychopath’s brain different? Yes. There are differences in the areas that deal with empathy and guilt, and the areas that deal with fear and anxiety. What exactly is a psychopath? “Psychopath” is not actually a clinical diagnosis. The real condition is antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) and a psychopath would be on the far
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I learned this today. The gambler’s fallacy is the belief that a random event is more or less likely to happen based on the outcome of a previous event. For example, if a coin is flipped ten times and it comes up heads ten times, the gambler will believe that heads is less likely on
#207 What is the gambler’s fallacy? Read More »
