What is Psychology?
Psychology is the scientific study of the mind and behavior. Psychologists are actively involved in studying and understanding mental processes, brain functions, and behavior. The field of psychology is considered a “Hub Science” with strong connections to the medical sciences, social sciences, and education.According to Ohio State University there are 8 distinct areas of psychology.
Behavioral Neuroscience
- Factors influencing plasticity of brain and behavior through development and into adulthood
- Hippocampal biology and function
- Stress and the brain
- Neurogenesis and brain plasticity across the life span
- Sex-related differences in brain function
- Endocrine and immune regulation of brain and behavior
- The neurobiology of cognitive control
Clinical Psychology
- The treatment of mood and personality disorders using cognitive behavioral therapies
- Biobehavioral responses to cancer diagnosis and treatment
- Testing and dissemination of psychological treatments for cancer patients
- Psychological and behavioral adaptation to chronic health problems
- Effects of exercise on psychological and cognitive functioning
- Neuroplasticity in healthy aging and neurological disorders
- Mindfulness and cognitive functioning in older adults
Cognitive Psychology
- Experimental, brain imaging, and model-based approaches to perception, memory, decision making, action, and language
- Modeling decision processing in memory, perception, numeracy.
- How our visual systems create our stable perception of the world
- Neuroimaging (fMRI) studies examining how we value and choose things
- The creation of biologically plausible network models of human cognition
- How we control our attention in complex tasks
- How the auditory system solves the challenges of understanding spoken language
Decision Science
- How cognitive, affective, and social processes influence judgment and choice
- How numeracy (numeric ability) affects real-world decisions
- How the brain represents subjective values and beliefs
- The role of attitudes in numeric judgment and choice
- How to improve self-control
- How information is interpreted and integrated in decision making
- Modeling decision making in aging and cognitive decline
Developmental Psychology
Learning and developmental change in cognition, behavior, and the brain
Genetic and environmental influences on brain and behavior
Development of memory, categorization, and reasoning
Development of numerical cognition and mathematical thinking
How children learn language and use it to understand their world
How children grow beyond the superficial in their social and moral understanding How children grow beyond the superficial in their social and moral understanding
Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
- How to improve health and well-being in children and adults with intellectual disabilities, autism spectrum disorders, and other neurodevelopmental disorders
- How to best support family members of people with disabilities
- How to impact the outcome and course of intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder, and related neurodevelopmental disorders
- How to develop psychological instruments that measure core and associated features of intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder, and other neurodevelopmental disorders
- How to treat behavior and emotional problems in children and adults who have intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder, and related neurodevelopmental disorders
Quantitative Psychology
- Developing, evaluating and applying new quantitative methods for the analysis of psychological data
- The application of statistical models to real world problems
- Bayesean models of human cognition
Social Psychology
- Automatic and deliberative attitudes: Influences on information processing, judgment, and behavior
- Increasing women’s participation in STEM disciplines
- How motivations in social interactions shape relationships, beliefs, well-being, and health
- What motivates social behavior
- Effects of the immune system and common anti-inflammatory drugs (e.g. Tylenol) on emotions, decisions, and social behavior
- How similarity in brain activity across people underlies similarity in thoughts, attitudes and beliefs
Interesting Psychological Facts
Our brains help us interpret the environment, recognize everyone and everything, learn new knowledge, and ironically, we really don’t know how our brains work. This is why Psychology feels intriguing and thought-provoking to many! So, here are the most interesting 100 Psychology facts.
- The term ‘psychology‘ has been derived from the Greek word ‘psyche’ translating as ‘breath, spirit, soul’ and ‘logia’ that corresponds to ‘study of’.
- It takes about 66 days for an average individual to make something a daily habit.
- Studies say that individuals who could instinctively use sarcasm to tackle a frivolous question have healthy minds.
- Individuals who have a deep sense of guilt are better at identifying the emotions and concerns of the people around them.
- We can udnretsnad any msseed up stnecene as lnog as the lsat and frsit lteerts of wdros are in crrcoet palecs. Suhc as tihs stnecene.
- We’re naturally second-minded because other people don’t approve.
- Yawning to have someone else’s yawn is a normal phenomenon, despite not feeling exhausted or asleep. One of the myths regarding its infectiousness is that people ‘catch’ it to express empathy.
- An average individual’s mind wanders 30% of the time.
- Eye pupil rises to 45% when an individual looks at somebody they love.
- We often tend to break down knowledge into classes of 3-4 objects in them. The Indian phone number is 984-973-2543. Three blocks with 3-4 bits in each chunk
- During the 7 minutes of neural activity you will have before dying, you will see your memories in a dreamlike pattern.
- Having siblings is proven to help with getting along well with peers.
- The way an individual treats the employees at an establishment tells immensely about their character.
- If you sob out of happiness, the first tear will come from the right eye, but if you cry out of sorrow, it will come from the left.
- Food prepared by someone else tastes much better than your own preparation, even when you use the same recipe.
- Hearing a single negative thing could damage at least five positive memories.
- Studies have shown that consuming food without preservatives will increase I.Q by up to 14%.
- You seem to think more about a specific individual than about catastrophic events.
- An individual still has 7 minutes of neural activity before he passes away.
- Researchers have observed that thinking that something bad is going to happen is less stressful to understand than not understanding how it will eventually wind up.
- Men aren’t more entertaining than women: they only make more jokes, they don’t care whether others like their humour or not.
- Shy people tell others very little about themselves, but they do it in quite a manner that makes other individuals believe they know them better than they actually think they do.
- Our brain size has decreased by 10% since we were hunter-gatherers.
- People in blue rooms are also much more productive.
- The study showed that information could last longer in the mind of a person evaluated for it than if it were only examined without the need for instant recall.
- You are in an endless pursuit of human faces in inanimate objects.
- People are much more likely to return a missing wallet if a picture of a child is found inside.
- Smart people tend to have fewer mates than the average person. The smarter the individual, the more selective they become.
- People who speak two languages can unintentionally change their personalities when they switch to speak from one language to another.
- People would rather change the truth than change their views about people.
- Being alone is harder for your health than you really believe.
- We’re the most imaginative in the night and the least creative in the day.
- Being home alone and isolated for a long time is just as bad for your wellbeing as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
- People are more likely to blame someone in the case when something negative happens.
- Studies also found that people who are in a position of influence and power are very poor in determining other people’s emotions.
- People between the ages of 18 and 33 are the highest percentage to have depression in the world.
- Studies say that travel improves brain wellbeing and even lowers a person’s chance of heart disease and depression.
- Cognitive dissonance is when you have two contradictory values, and you change one to match another.
- The broken heart condition is also called stress cardiomyopathy, which could lead to critical, short-term heart muscle dysfunction.
- The force of authority may have the same effect on a human as a traumatic brain injury.
- People read quicker with longer lines but prefer shorter lines.
- Larger groups make worse and more subjective choices than larger groups or people.
- If you can’t interrupt the stream of thinking at night, write it down. This is going to put your mind at ease so that you can relax.
- Women have half as many pain receptors on their bodies as males, but they have a much greater threshold for pain.
- Physically, repetition affects the brain as new associations are made between brain cells.
- The maximum number of close relationships/friendships you can maintain is between 50 and 150.
- Any relationship born between 16 and 28 years of age is more likely to be robust and long-lasting.
- Emotional pain is remembered better than actual pain which has a greater influence on your behaviour.
- If we have a plan B, our plan A is less likely to succeed.
- The starting and the ending are easier to recall than the middle ones.
- Anything that your mind says has an identical response from the body’s cells.
- We would like to break more laws if one law is too strict.
- London cab drivers, who need to know every street in London, have an expanded hippocampus that indicates that this area is increasing as you decipher more details.
- Our minds are working on making boring speeches more exciting.
- You’re conditioned to enjoy the songs you’ve most listened to in high school.
- Memories are more like pieced images than precise snapshots.
- When you feel like you’re low on something like money, you’re obsessive about it.
- A scientist named Thomas H. Morgan discovered that chromosomes had inherited knowledge.
- Your brain is doing more imaginative work when you’re sleepy.
- It is also found that staying optimistic about the future can powerfully shield people from physical and mental illness.
- People who view crime shows and films have consistently overestimated the frequency of crime in the real world.
- Your reliance on social media is the product of your psychological system.
- There’s a neurological explanation why you thought like your phone was vibrating because there’s absolutely no warning called Phantom Vibration Syndrome.
- Some people live their lives as if they were in a reality television show.
- Feeling as though you are in a TV reality show is considered the Truman Syndrome.
- Seeing others favourably shows our positive characteristics, seeing others negatively reveals our negative attributes.
- Depression is often referred to as the product of thought. Imagination causes issues that didn’t exist.
- Being happy around people makes you happier.
- Convincing yourself that you slept well tricks your brain into believing you did.
- The sort of music you listen to influences the way you view the world.
- Romantic desire is biochemically indistinguishable from serious obsessive-compulsive disorder.
- Phobias may be memories which are passed down through many ancestors by means of our DNA, according to new studies.
- Researchers are thinking of adding Internet addiction to the general list of psychiatric illnesses.
- The brain experiences rejection as physical discomfort.
- We might persuade ourselves that a dull job was enjoyable if we weren’t rewarded.
- Sugar and fat were pretty good stuff to our predecessors.
- Our brain doesn’t think that long-term deadlines are so significant.
- Our own local culture and environment can sometimes cause hallucinatory voices.
- The average high school student now has the same level of anxiety as compared to the average psychiatric ward inmate in the early 1950s.
- Religious rituals, such as prayer, are associated with significantly lower levels of mental issues or psychological discomfort.
- No one born blind has ever had schizophrenia.
- Your choices are more logical because you think about another language.
- Human behavioural studies indicate that a person who loses mobile phone experiences a fear comparable to a near-death experience.
- A hug longer than twenty seconds will produce hormones into your body that makes you trust the individual who is hugging you.
- People are franker because they’re emotionally drained. That’s why people mention things in late-night talks.
- Chocolate discharges the chemical Oxytocin which is the same chemical your body produces when you are happy.
- Happiness, rage, sorrow, anxiety, disgust, and surprise are the six feelings that are uniformly conveyed.
- People seem to be happy when they’re kept busy, as this keeps them from worrying about bad problems in life.
- Narcissistic Personality Disorder exists in around 6% of the population.
- The sight of water has a very calming and soothing effect on people which makes them experience happiness, calming thoughts and be even more imaginative.
- People seem to respect items more when they assemble them on their own, also partially named after the furniture from the renowned store, the ‘IKEA effect.’
- One research claimed that a man who was named Billy Milligan had 24 personalities.
- Money will buy happiness, but only to a certain extent.
- Retrograde amnesia is a disease where you don’t recall much of the injuries.
- About all colours have a physical wavelength associated with it, but the Magenta hue does not. Instead, the brain is actually viewing the colour as “not green.”
- Almost all colours have a physical wavelength associated with it, but the colour Magenta doesn’t as your brain is actually interpreting the colour as “not green.”
- We scream out when we are really happy, and our hypothalamus in our brain can’t distinguish the difference between good happiness and sorrow.
- When we sleep, our spinal fluid flows into the skull beyond the blood vessels of the brain. This reduces brain cell waste, a particular accumulation of amyloid-beta protein.
- The fastest supercomputer in the world takes 24 million watts of power to run, but our brains only need 20 watts and operate over 100,000 times faster.
- Exercise slows the neurological deterioration in our brains, and increased physical exercise will delay our brain’s ageing by 10 years.
- Romantic desire is biochemically indistinguishable from serious obsessive-compulsive disorder.
- Phobias may be memories which are passed down through many ancestors by means of our DNA, according to new studies.
- Researchers are thinking of adding Internet addiction to the general list of psychiatric illnesses.
- The brain experiences rejection as physical discomfort.
- We might persuade ourselves that a dull job was enjoyable if we weren’t rewarded.
- Sugar and fat were pretty good stuff to our predecessors.
- Our brain doesn’t think that long-term deadlines are so significant.
- Our own local culture and environment can sometimes cause hallucinatory voices.
- The average high school student now has the same level of anxiety as compared to the average psychiatric ward inmate in the early 1950s.
- Religious rituals, such as prayer, are associated with significantly lower levels of mental issues or psychological discomfort.
- No one born blind has ever had schizophrenia.
- Your choices are more logical because you think about another language.
- Human behavioural studies indicate that a person who loses mobile phone experiences a fear comparable to a near-death experience.
- A hug longer than twenty seconds will produce hormones into your body that makes you trust the individual who is hugging you.
- People are franker because they’re emotionally drained. That’s why people mention things in late-night talks.
- Chocolate discharges the chemical Oxytocin which is the same chemical your body produces when you are happy.
- Happiness, rage, sorrow, anxiety, disgust, and surprise are the six feelings that are uniformly conveyed.
- People seem to be happy when they’re kept busy, as this keeps them from worrying about bad problems in life.
- Narcissistic Personality Disorder exists in around 6% of the population.
- The sight of water has a very calming and soothing effect on people which makes them experience happiness, calming thoughts and be even more imaginative.