Internet Psychologist
Customers love to be loved. In fact, we tend to shy away from companies who dislike us in some way. Only last week, after 9 years of loyal custom, I cancelled my Annual Membership with the RAC; I had found I could get an equivalent breakdown service for a quarter …
Congratulations to President-Elect Obama – an historic victory. But part of his success may be down to a psychological phenomenon known as “contextual priming”. A study performed last year revealed that the building you vote in has an effect on who you decide to vote for. In essence, the context …
Every day tens of thousands of people think they can make their fortune online. They dream of making millions while they sleep, of having a stylish home paid for in cash and of being able to relax on the beach as they gaze across to their Ferrari parked in full …
According to researchers in California, using the Internet is good for the brain – particularly if you are middle aged. The research, due to be published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, looked at the brains of people aged between 55 and 76 to see what impact surfing the …
One in five people are “chronic procrastinators” – and the rest of us aren’t much better. Putting things off until later is a common feature of many people’s daily lives – in fact we are rather good at procrastination. It’s all down to parenting styles and education systems. Over-controlling parents …
Narcissists are people who focus entirely on themselves; they also believe everyone else should focus their attention on them as well…! They are attention seekers who rarely develop any long-term relationships or any deep and meaningful relationships. The trouble is, they are frequently successful. Narcissists tend to be likeable, friendly …
For several years psychologists have known that just before we make a decision to move a muscle, say to move that mouse you have in your hand, or to type on your keyboard, there is a burst of subconscious brain activity. What appears to be happening is that all the …
How often do you check your email? When you install email software, such as Microsoft Outlook, it is set up to automatically check for new messages every 10 minutes. Few people change the default settings, so most people get used to emails popping into their inbox regularly throughout the day. …
Many web sites never get off the ground; the people setting them up often don’t want to go-ahead and publish because the site isn’t “quite ready”. Indeed, I met a chap a few months ago whose site was still “under construction” after two years of “development” and he was “almost …
The youth of today, eh? Just what are they coming to? They’re an opinionated self-assured bunch aren’t they? Today’s youngsters certainly seem a lot more confident than the teenagers I remember hanging out with. And as for comparing them to those quiet, shy youngsters of the 1940s, well, there is …
Bold researchers speaking at the University of East Anglia today have revealed that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (a popular psychological treatment technique) may not be all it’s cracked up to be. Indeed, some studies suggest that CBT is just as useful as other, less popular therapies, like “psychodynamics”. It all reminds …
The more that neuroscientists learn about the brain, the less they know. Hardly a day goes by without some piece of research leading us to question how our brain works, just when we thought we were coming to an answer. For several years now, psychologists have remained somewhat dumbfounded by …
Go to any business meeting these days and you are sure to find at least one of the speakers suggesting some kind of psychological backing for their claims. For instance, you may often hear that 55% of our communication is “body language”; it’s an oft-repeated claim in business circles. The …
Web users are becoming increasingly impatient, according to the web usability expert Jakob Nielsen. Apparently, we spend much less time waiting for pages to load and to find out what they are about. If it’s not an “instant” message, we move on. Well, apart from the fact that Jakob Nielsen’s …
Neurologists have published new research which shows that we trust people when our levels of oxytocin are high. Oxytocin is a hormone that for years was thought mostly to be involved only in childbirth since one of its principal functions is to open up the birth canal. However, more recently …