Portal:Psychology

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P:PSY

Psychology is the study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both conscious and unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feelings, and motives. Psychology is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between the natural and social sciences. Biological psychologists seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, linking the discipline to neuroscience. As social scientists, psychologists aim to understand the behavior of individuals and groups.

A professional practitioner or researcher involved in the discipline is called a psychologist. Some psychologists can also be classified as behavioral or cognitive scientists. Some psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in individual and social behavior. Others explore the physiological and neurobiological processes that underlie cognitive functions and behaviors.

Psychologists are involved in research on perception, cognition, attention, emotion, intelligence, subjective experiences, motivation, brain functioning, and personality. Psychologists' interests extend to interpersonal relationships, psychological resilience, family resilience, and other areas within social psychology. They also consider the unconscious mind. Research psychologists employ empirical methods to infer causal and correlational relationships between psychosocial variables. Some, but not all, clinical and counseling psychologists rely on symbolic interpretation. (Full article...)

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Retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) is a memory phenomenon where remembering causes forgetting of other information in memory. The phenomenon was first demonstrated in 1994, although the concept of RIF has been previously discussed in the context of retrieval inhibition.

RIF is demonstrated through a three-phase experiment consisting of study, practice of some studied material, and a final test of all studied material. Such experiments have also used multiple kinds of final tests including recall using only category cues, recall using category and word stems, and recognition tests. The effect has been produced using many different kinds of materials, can be produced in group settings, and is reduced in special clinical populations. (Full article...)

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Work by Adolf Wölfli, an outsider artist and patient at a Swiss psychiatric hospital

image credit: public domain

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"A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be." — Abraham Maslow

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Phyllis Chesler (born October 1, 1940) is an American writer, psychotherapist, and professor emerita of psychology and women's studies at the College of Staten Island (CUNY). She is a renowned second-wave feminist psychologist and the author of 18 books, including the best-sellers Women and Madness (1972), With Child: A Diary of Motherhood (1979), and An American Bride in Kabul: A Memoir (2013). Chesler has written extensively about topics such as gender, mental illness, divorce and child custody, surrogacy, second-wave feminism, pornography, prostitution, incest, and violence against women.

Chesler has written several works on subjects such as anti-Semitism, women in Islam, and honor killings. Chesler argues that many Western intellectuals, including leftists and feminists, have abandoned Western values in the name of multicultural relativism, and that this has led to an alliance with Islamists, an increase in anti-Semitism, and to the abandonment of Muslim women and religious minorities in Muslim-majority countries. (Full article...)

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... that the psychological inner space genre was a rebellion against the traditional focus of science fiction on literal outer space?
... that, although created to understand Chinese psychological torture of American POWs during the Korean War, Biderman's Chart of Coercion was used by American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay?
... that fashion psychology is an interdisciplinary field that studies the interaction between human behavior, psychology, and fashion?
... that Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Rawlins proposed that the Rhodesian Army employ witchdoctors as psychological warfare during the Rhodesian Bush War?
... that the first day of filming of the psychological thriller Farah coincided with the beginning of the 2019 Lebanese protests?
... that Susan Silk developed ring theory when a colleague said that Silk's breast cancer wasn't just about her?

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...that Julian Rotter developed the locus of control theory, which has been widely used in the psychology of personality?

...that the effects of head trauma on memory can be seen by the post-operative results of HM, a patient who has been unable to form any new long-term memories since a surgical procedure performed in the 1950s?

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