January 2026
April 2025
- Apr 29, 2025CulturePeer Pressure ExplainedNormative influence conforms to group standards. Informational influence follows crowds assuming they know better. Both shape behavior powerfully.
- Apr 28, 2025CultureWhat Are Social Norms? Governing Behavior in SocietySocial norms: unwritten rules governing behavior in situations. Enable coordination like driving right and signal group membership through dress...
- Apr 25, 2025CultureGroup Behavior OnlineGroups polarize opinions, coordinate action like flash mobs, and enforce norms through voting. Collective behavior emerges from individual actions.
February 2025
- Feb 9, 2025ConceptsSocial Facilitation: When Others Make Us Better, or WorseSocial facilitation explains why others' presence improves performance on easy tasks but impairs it on difficult ones.
- Feb 1, 2025ConceptsCognitive Consistency Theory: The Need for Belief AlignmentCognitive Consistency Theory explains why people change beliefs to reduce psychological discomfort.
January 2025
- Jan 30, 2025ConceptsStereotype Threat: When Fear of Confirming Becomes RealIn 1995, Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson gave Black and white Stanford students a difficult verbal test.
- Jan 28, 2025ConceptsUnderstanding Social Loafing in Group DynamicsIn 1913, Max Ringelmann had men pull a rope alone and in groups. Alone, each man pulled with about 63 kg of force.
- Jan 27, 2025ConceptsSocial Identity Theory: Favoring Our In-GroupIn 1970, Henri Tajfel told Bristol schoolboys they preferred either Klee or Kandinsky paintings, a distinction Tajfel invented on the spot.
- Jan 26, 2025ConceptsThe Norm of Reciprocity: Gifts, Debts, and ObligationsIn 1971, Dennis Regan had a confederate give subjects a Coke during a break in an experiment.
- Jan 24, 2025ConceptsThe Implicit Association Test: Measuring Hidden BiasAnthony Greenwald, Debbie McGhee, and Jordan Schwartz's 1998 paper introduced a test that could measure racial bias in milliseconds.
- Jan 19, 2025ConceptsSystem Justification Theory and Its Social ImplicationsWomen rate male job candidates more favorably than identical female candidates. Working-class voters oppose redistribution more strongly than the...
- Jan 16, 2025ConceptsRegulatory Focus Theory: Promotion vs. Prevention MindsetsE. Tory Higgins showed children a cartoon animal that was either cheerful when it found its favorite food or sad when it didn't.
- Jan 15, 2025ConceptsMoral Foundations Theory: Why Liberals and Conservatives DifferJonathan Haidt asked subjects to evaluate a scenario: a family eats their dog after it dies in a car accident. No one is harmed. Everyone consents.
- Jan 14, 2025ConceptsGroupthink: How Cohesion Leads to Poor Decision-MakingAfter the Bay of Pigs disaster, John F. Kennedy asked his advisors: 'How could I have been so stupid?' The plan was transparently flawed.
- Jan 12, 2025ConceptsDeindividuation: The Impact of Anonymity on BehaviorIn 1969, Philip Zimbardo had NYU students administer electric shocks to another person. Half wore their normal clothes and name tags.
- Jan 9, 2025ConceptsObedience to Authority: The Dangers of ComplianceStanley Milgram asked psychiatrists to predict how many Yale subjects would administer the maximum 450-volt shock to another person if ordered to...
- Jan 4, 2025ConceptsImplicit Bias: Exploring Unconscious PrejudicesIn 1998, Anthony Greenwald, Debbie McGhee, and Jordan Schwartz published the Implicit Association Test, a measure of automatic mental associations...
- Jan 3, 2025ConceptsElaboration Likelihood Model: How Persuasion Actually WorksIn 1984, Richard Petty and John Cacioppo told some students that a proposed exam policy would take effect at their university next year (high...
- Jan 2, 2025ConceptsCognitive Dissonance Reduction StrategiesA smoker who knows smoking causes cancer has a problem: the belief 'I smoke' conflicts with the belief 'smoking kills.' The discomfort of that...
December 2024
- Dec 30, 2024ConceptsUnderstanding Social Comparison Theory and Its EffectsOlympic silver medalists look less happy than bronze medalists at the moment of winning. The silver medalist compares upward, to gold, which they...
- Dec 29, 2024ConceptsPsychological Reactance: Why Bans BackfireIn 1975, Stephen Worchel put two cookies in one jar and ten in another, then told subjects the scarce jar was limited due to demand.
- Dec 24, 2024ConceptsMinority Influence: How Small Groups Shift MajoritiesMinority Influence research shows how consistent, committed minorities can change the attitudes of majorities, often through deeper, more lasting...
- Dec 21, 2024ConceptsAttribution Theory: Misunderstanding ActionsIn 1967, Jones and Harris had subjects read essays supporting Fidel Castro's Cuba. Even when subjects were explicitly told the writers had been...
- Dec 19, 2024ConceptsThe Pygmalion Effect in Psychology: Expectations and Their ImpactIn 1968, Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson told teachers at a San Francisco elementary school that certain students, randomly selected, had...
- Dec 17, 2024ConceptsThe Mere Exposure Effect: Why Familiarity Breeds LikingIn 1968, Robert Zajonc exposed subjects to nonsense words, Chinese characters, and photographs of faces at varying frequencies.
- Dec 16, 2024ConceptsThe Just-World Hypothesis: Understanding Victim BlameIn the mid-1960s, Melvin Lerner showed subjects an innocent woman receiving electric shocks. Unable to stop the shocks, observers began to derogate her,...
- Dec 15, 2024ConceptsThe False Consensus Effect: Misjudging Social NormsIn 1977, Lee Ross asked Stanford students whether they would walk around campus wearing a sandwich board reading 'Eat at Joe's.' Those who agreed...
- Dec 11, 2024ConceptsThe Self-Serving Bias: Taking Credit, Avoiding BlameIn 1964, Johnson, Feigenbaum, and Weiby gave teachers feedback on a student's performance. When the student improved, teachers attributed it to...
- Dec 9, 2024ConceptsMoral Licensing: How Good Deeds Allow Bad BehaviorIn 2001, Benoît Monin and Dale Miller at Stanford showed that subjects who had the opportunity to establish moral credentials, by disagreeing...
- Dec 5, 2024ConceptsIllusory Correlation: Patterns that Mislead Our MindsIn 1967, Loren Chapman showed clinical psychologists Draw-a-Person test responses and patient diagnoses.
- Dec 2, 2024ConceptsThe Negativity Bias: Why Bad Is Stronger Than GoodJohn Gottman's lab found that marriages headed for divorce had a ratio of positive to negative interactions of about 0.8:1.
November 2024
- Nov 26, 2024ConceptsIn-Group Bias: The Psychology of Group FavoritismIn 1971, Henri Tajfel assigned Bristol schoolboys to groups based on a coin flip. Within minutes, they were systematically favoring their own...
- Nov 20, 2024ConceptsThe Halo EffectIn 1920, Edward Thorndike noticed that military officers who rated their soldiers as intelligent also rated them as physically fit, loyal, and dependable, and vice versa. The ratings correlated far more strongly than the actual traits could possibly justify. Thorndike had identified the halo effect: a single positive impression radiates outward and distorts every subsequent judgment. A century later, research shows the halo follows us into hiring, justice, medicine, and every relationship we form.
- Nov 16, 2024ConceptsThe Fundamental Attribution ErrorIn 1967, Edward Jones and Victor Harris asked students to rate the true attitudes of essayists who had written pro-Castro arguments. When told the writer chose the position freely, students inferred pro-Castro attitudes. When told the writer was assigned the position (forced to argue a side they might not believe), students still inferred pro-Castro attitudes. The situational constraint made no difference. The fundamental attribution error: we systematically underestimate the power of situations and overestimate the role of character when explaining other people's behavior.
- Nov 14, 2024ConceptsConfirmation Bias: Why We Find What We're Looking ForIn 1960, Peter Wason showed subjects the sequence 2-4-6 and told them it followed a rule. To discover the rule, they proposed triples. Almost universally, subjects proposed triples that fit their hypothesis, such as 4-6-8, 10-12-14, and almost never proposed triples that could disprove it. The rule was simply 'any ascending sequence.' Confirmation bias: the systematic tendency to search for, favor, and remember information that confirms what we already believe.
May 2024
February 2024
- Feb 26, 2024ConceptsThe Importance of Belonging in Human PsychologyThe science of belonging: Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary's fundamental need to belong hypothesis, Naomi Eisenberger's fMRI social pain research,...
- Feb 24, 2024ConceptsUnderstanding Humans' Tendency to LieHumans lie constantly and mostly without awareness. Understand the evolutionary origins of deception, the neuroscience of lying, why we lie to...
- Feb 11, 2024ConceptsThe Psychology Behind the Spread of Conspiracy TheoriesWhy do people believe conspiracy theories? Understand the cognitive, social, and motivational psychology that makes conspiracy thinking appealing,...
- Feb 5, 2024ConceptsWhat Is Social Psychology?Social psychology studies how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are shaped by the presence and influence of others.
October 2023
October 2022
- Oct 12, 2022ConceptsEmotional Contagion: Understanding How Emotions SpreadEmotional contagion is the automatic process by which emotions spread between people. Learn the science, the Facebook controversy, and how it...
- Oct 3, 2022ConceptsUnderstanding the Spotlight Effect: Perception BiasThe spotlight effect is the cognitive bias causing us to overestimate how much others notice and judge us.
August 2022
February 2022
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