Psychology

In the February 2023 issue of Signs of the Times, I wrote an article titled Gambling’s Dark Underbelly. Here in Australia, gambling is a multi-billion-dollar industry with a few very rich winners and millions of losers. In the article I concluded that “Gambling in any form is designed to bleed you for as long as you’re willing to bleed, with no regard for...

As a teenager, I remember pasting a quote from Blaise Pascal on the wall of my room. It was a thought I resonated with, not without some arrogance: "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone."

I recently watched a TV show in which the guests, which included professors and psychotherapists, when asked about the feminine ideal in the contemporary world, expressed opinions that seemed strange to me: that such an ideal would no longer be detectable or would no longer have a purpose, today...

I open the window and breathe in the air, trying to guess the weather. Floating around, mixed, are scents and miasms alike; it's hard to decipher these intricate clues.

Compromise is always present in relationships. It may pull us down, but it can also be a good reconciliation exercise when there are differences that cannot be resolved in any other way.

How do parents influence their children's marriages?

I've always liked pets, but from a distance. Raised by a mother convinced that animals cannot possibly live under the same roof as people, I adopted a similar opinion, which I kept for many years, even if a great number of people tried to prove me wrong.

Temperance was once upheld by philosophers, saints and stoics. In a world dominated by indulgence, its call to balance feels more relevant than ever.

Sometimes I think I was born with a magnifying glass in my hand, one through which I critically scrutinize everything I do and say and which relentlessly magnifies every imperfection.

Besides carefree days, Christmas carols and traditional sweet breads, any respectable December also includes an evaluation of the achievements of the previous year and making plans for the future.

The stakes are high when it comes to identifying the one to whom we should pray, and we can discover who by answering an apparently simple question: Can we expect prayers to be heard no matter who we address them to?

Mainstream culture has tried to airbrush guilt out of everyday life. It’s the ultimate social faux pas, it seems, to make someone feel guilty—How dare you judge me! Or maybe it’s the penultimate faux pas, because what’s even worse than making someone feel guilty inside is to shame them in front of others.

The American Economic Review recently published the results of the largest randomized study ever conducted to measure the impact on the quality of life that deactivation ones Facebook account might have.

I spoke very little in my early years and my mother says that my silence scared her. She never knew what was going through my mind. She was afraid I was hiding something.

They say self-esteem is a vital ingredient for success in life. But what if everything we were taught about self-esteem is wrong?