Psychology

“Why are you still single?” Even though I have been asked this question countless times, I still never know how to answer it. 

The mental load is a concept that has gained attention in the last little while. What if mental load had a baby?

Romantic love is easily hurt and somewhat pretentious, especially when faced with direct honesty. Friendship is more solid.

The problems that arise in our lives are nothing more than cognitive obstacles that we don't immediately have the skills to overcome. The most important question when we get stuck is: do I ask for help or do I solve my problems myself?

It is as surprising as it is real: negative characters like Dexter Morgan, from the eponymous Dexter, and Walter White, from Breaking Bad, have been cropping up in popular culture more and more often lately. Since when, how, and why have anti-heroes gained so much popularity?

The wisdom of friendship consists in finding those who do not require a price, or ask you to change.

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...

One of the most striking changes in contemporary parenting is the way it is starting to resemble a well-designed video game, which can make players become addicted. But what happens to parents who feel they are losing the game?

How can we protect ourselves against expecting too much of our friendships? Can we do something to prepare for the disappointment? And what does one do to deal with it?

I was only 13 when I first experienced it. My three best girlfriends handed me a letter. It said they no longer wanted to be my friends. The only reason given was, “The guys pay you too much attention.” After delivering the letter, they simply shunned me.

Because life in developed societies follows a more or less regular pattern, sociologists have managed to identify the age at which conditions are most conducive to forming a friendship. It's not that people who are not of this age are unable to form meaningful connections with other people, but at other ages, life takes us on different paths, without asking for our permission.

Loss begets pain, but pain is not one-size-fits-all, so there are no recovery methods that work in all situations. We do have at hand, however, explanatory models of pain, studies that dismantle myths about grief and, above all, "a psychological immune system" that helps us recover from painful experiences.

In an interview published by Inc.com, 24-year-old Romanian Ovidiu Dobrota, from Oradea, Romania, boasted that his fake news site Ending The Fed had a substantial impact in supporting Donald Trump in the presidential elections. According to a Buzzfeed analysis, his boasting is well-founded.

Next to family and health, friends are among the top reasons that make us happy. But what if we are solitary, recluse or shy?

At some point, we've all come across the phrase "back in my day," a deeply subjective expression which encapsulates a universal phenomenon: the generation gap.