These two jokes represent disparagement humor – any attempt to amuse through the denigration of a social group or its representatives. You know it as sexist or racist jokes – basically anything that makes a punchline out of a marginalized group.
When “L” was diagnosed with a psychotic disorder, it hardly came as a surprise, even to her. She had been experiencing subtle but distressing symptoms of psychosis
You work late and finally crawl into bed absolutely wiped out. But you can’t fall asleep because your mind is still racing. Oooo! You finally do fall asleep! But then you wake up in the middle of the night. You can’t go back to sleep, so you get up and...
- By Alan Cohen
When you use fear, guilt, threat, or punishment to control someone who bothers you, you add to the dark mess. Teaching others that they are guilty, small, stupid, or owing are forms of psychological terrorism. When you release others, you release yourself.
Afroman’s 2001 hit Because I Got High tells a potentially important story: smoking cannabis makes you lazy and demotivated. In fact, the fable of the lazy stoner has been around for decades. But is there good evidence in support of it?
Pictures of Nigella Lawson wearing a burkini on Bondi Beach and nuns paddling on a French beach in their religious garb show how selective and ridiculous the burkini law is.
Humor is observed in all cultures and at all ages. But only in recent decades has experimental psychology respected it as an essential, fundamental human behavior.
We develop the capacity to experience happiness, ecstasy, and tranquility to the degree to which we can free ourselves from the residue of our emotional body.
New research suggests that upbeat music can foster cooperation at work.
In 1957 Vance Packard’s book The Hidden Persuaders shocked the world by revealing that messages exposed subliminally, below our level of perception, were able to increase sales of ice cream and Coke.
The conviction of radical Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary for swearing allegiance to Islamic State shows that those breaking the law by inviting support for a terrorist organisation can and will be prosecuted.
We are currently living in what I call the Never Enough Story, a cultural myth characterized by ideas of separation, unworthiness, and scarcity. It is a culture that indoctrinates each and every one of us to the idea that we are separate, on our own, and there is never enough to go around.
- By Karen Casey
Personal problems are only as big and as real as we make them. In fact, they only exist if we allow our egos to create them and then we feed them through our incessant attention. Take a look at the following suggestions for changing how you look at the “imagined problems” in your life.
Guilt is a difficult burden to carry around with you. And guilt perpetuates what you are guilty about; how does it do that? Guilt is a very negative, destructive energy. It is different from remorse, the feeling we get when we know we have done something wrong and we’re dreadfully sorry. In the case of remorse...
It is 25 years since cricket commentators Brian Johnston and Jonathan Agnew famously got the uncontrollable giggles on live radio, while reporting on that day’s Test Match between England and the West Indies.
Crisis hotlines have been around for years, but until recently there’s been very little data on which counseling strategies seemed most effective at helping people cope. The recent emergence of text-based crisis help lines is changing that.
Humans have evolved a disproportionately large brain as a result of sizing each other up in large cooperative social groups, propose researchers.
We all experience the ups and downs of life sometimes. We might be treated badly by others or miss out on something we think we deserve, like a promotion at work.
All we can ever hope to do, Sigmund Freud once wrote, is “to change neurotic misery into common unhappiness”. This pessimistic statement from arguably the most influential psychological theorist of modern times captured the mood that prevailed in psychology through most of the 20th century.
According to new data, supporters of Donald Trump prefer to get their news from television and enjoy watching crime dramas.
Older African Americans and Latinos have an edge over whites when it comes to being able to quit smoking, according to a study of nearly 3,000 smokers.
It’s time for humanity to write new parables. New voices. A new language. It’s time for new books. New songs. New pictures. Tradition and nostalgia served their place to bond us and then, to separate us. Fear kept us from grace. It kept us from one another. It kept us from the divine. It kept us lonely and isolated and frightened. Always frightened.
Individual tendencies toward physical aggression may lead someone to support aggressive foreign policy interventions, new research suggests.