Psychology

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.

Beginning with Cain and Abel, history has known famous and less famous stories woven around the devastating experience of envy.

On the morning of the 15 November 2016, I awoke in a hospital bed, with no memory of how I got there. My favourite pyjamas had been torn from my body, and I lay in a hospital gown, a piercing pain in my head, impaling my brain. I was barely able to think and incapable of speech. I was scared, though this was...

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.

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.

What do you do when things go wrong and everything around you seems to crumble? Do you keep your eyes forward and try to find a solution? Or do you fall into endless complaining?

The importance of humour, including in the workplace, is often undervalued, as a series of studies suggest.

These days, we are free to believe anything and to be anything, at least in theory. However, if we gave history a closer look, we would realise that it is not beneficial for us to believe or be just anything. We agree with the biblical exhortation, often distorted by popular lore: "...test them all; hold on to what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

Our dreams must be stronger than the unfortunate circumstances in which we find ourselves.

Psychologists recommend all sort of things you should have to develop a healthy and strong mind, like tenacity, ambition or optimism. To achieve this objective, however, there are also some things you should avoid.

People have always loved and cherished music, investing time into both composing and listening to it. Journalists from The New York Times sought to find the reason behind our deep attachment to this intangible thing that, for most of us, yields no material gain.

Ever since ancient times, people have been interested in the origin and purpose of dreams. The initial theories relied heavily on the supernatural and dreams were seen as mental meeting places for gods and mortals, where gods could express their will to mortals, reveal the future to them, or deliver messages from the afterlife.

It has been more than ten years since my first job interview ended with the classic: You did a great job, but we have chosen someone else. Since this memorable moment, other closed doors have followed: employers rejecting my application, people not sharing my interests, groups giving me the feeling of not being accepted.

Paul was imprisoned by the Roman Emperor. He was on Death Row. Every morning, when he opened his eyes, he didn’t know if this day would be his last, and whether he would be thrown to the lions or burned.

It’s strange how popular the saying What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger is, when it’s obvious that it is not what hits you that makes you stronger, but the way you take the hit.