Blog
Psychology, a term at a time
Longer reads from the team behind Psychology World: where the concepts in the dictionary come from, what they actually mean, and how they show up outside a textbook.
- Cognition9 min read
Ten cognitive biases, told apart
Confirmation bias, anchoring, the availability heuristic and seven more — defined precisely, plus the difference between a heuristic and a bias.
Read - Psychodynamics8 min read
Twelve defence mechanisms, in plain English
Projection, repression, sublimation, reaction formation and eight more — each defined in one sentence, with the pairs people mix up kept apart.
Read - Cognition9 min read
Cognitive dissonance, and the study that named it
Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort of holding two beliefs that clash. Festinger’s 1959 study, four examples, and the four ways people resolve it.
Read - Motivation9 min read
Learned helplessness: what Seligman actually found
Learned helplessness is the belief that nothing you do changes the outcome. What Seligman’s 1967 study showed, and what he corrected in 2016.
Read - Development9 min read
The four attachment styles, and where the names came from
Secure, anxious, avoidant, disorganised: what the four attachment styles mean, who named them, and why the infant labels don’t transfer to adults.
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