Psychology

There are many pitfalls to buying presents, from seeking an instant reaction to a fear of sentimentality. But a few simple psychological principles can help you make better choicesDecember can often feel like a never-ending ordeal, as we try to find the perfect gifts for our nearest and dearest. No matter how well we know someone, we struggle to discern their hidden wishes and desires. Each decision can feel like a test of our relationship. This is a natural consequence of the brain’s workings. Humans may be unique in our advanced ability to consider others’ viewpoints, but perspective-taking is enormously taxing for our little grey cells.“It takes a lot of mental energy,” says Prof ..

As a progressive, queer, Asian-American, I held stereotypical views about people on ‘the other side’. My tour helped me realise that curiosity is a potent force for understandingOddly enough, it was an overwhelming amount of hate that set me off on a cross-country road trip across America. I wasn’t taking a sabbatical to go into nature or working remotely in mountain-top forests. Instead, I spent 12 months living out of my retrofitted Prius, showering at Planet Fitness and meeting people who seemed different to me. Venturing out of the liberal stronghold of San Francisco, my journey on the road took me to places like a Trump rally in Minnesota and a convent with Catholic nuns and mille..

My friend and colleague Kate Robertson, who has died of pancreatic cancer aged 65, was a child and adolescent psychotherapist who became head of child psychotherapy at the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham and chair of the Association of Child Psychotherapists (ACP). She was a passionate advocate for widening access to the child psychotherapy profession and helped to extend government funding for NHS child psychotherapy training.Kate was born in Theydon Bois in Essex, the second daughter of Beryl (nee Jenkins), a secretary, and Bob Robertson, a company director. When she was 17 her mother died suddenly, and she went to live with her older sister, Hazel, who supported her while she con..

From simmering frustration at minor annoyances to boiling rage at the state of the world, many of us are angry at the moment. Experts offer tips and techniques on how to manage itFrom planes and supermarkets to traffic jams and, of course, online, it feels as if everyone is angry. Is it any wonder? Politics has become more polarised and bad-tempered than at any time in living memory, wars are top of the news agenda, and we’re in a cost-of-living crisis. It’s no surprise people are on edge.Anger itself isn’t necessarily negative. “Anger is a hardwired emotion that is our defence to a threat,” says Dr Nadja Heym, associate professor in personality psychology and psychopathology at No..

Venting can help us bond, but it can also leave a sour taste in your mouth – where is the line, and why do we love doing it?It’s a rush to realize you dislike the same person as someone else. There’s a delicate, intoxicating dance: throwing out oblique criticisms and prowling around the edges until one person takes the leap and bravely says: “Honestly, they kind of suck.”Soaking up the golden rays of your rightness and another’s wrongness can feel exhilarating. Then, sometimes, there’s a comedown. It hits a little later, or even while you’re making a snarky comment: a sour taste in your mouth that makes you wonder if you went too far. Continue reading...

After being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, I stopped trying to please everyone else. Now I have better relationships and a healthy, joyful lifeI’m a recovering people pleaser. Suppressing and repressing my needs, desires, expectations, feelings and opinions used to be as natural to me as breathing. To me, it was normal to tell people what they wanted to hear (read: lie) to make them feel better. Yes, I’ll be there for Christmas. Yes, I’ll do that for you. Yes, I can fit that in. And then I’d seethe with resentment and feelings of self-loathing, even as the Good Person in me knew I had ticked off at least some of the requisite qualities – kind, loving, hardworking and eager t..

Psychologist who pioneered the treatment of children after such disasters as the Zeebrugge ferry sinking and the King’s Cross fireOn 6 March 1987, the Herald of Free Enterprise ferry set sail from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge heading for Dover. The bow doors were not shut and within seconds it flooded with seawater. It capsized and 193 passengers and crew died.Bill (William) Yule, who has died aged 83, was a child psychologist at the Institute of Psychiatry (now the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience) in London and head of clinical psychology at what was then the Bethlem Royal and Maudsley hospital. He was asked to help the surviving children and speaking about it he s..

The idea of a friend who helps you commit to your goals is growing in popularity – whether you want to get fit, write a novel or build your businessWhen news emerged that new US Speaker Mike Johnson and his teenage son monitored each other’s pornography intake, the concept of an “accountability partner” was probably unfamiliar to many people. Certainly, the Republican politician hasn’t done much to sell the idea. Rolling Stone magazine, revelling in the “creepy Big Brother-ness” of it all, detailed how the “faith-obsessed” politician used an app called Covenant Eyes. Deployed by churches and missionary groups, it sends out weekly reports flagging up all the potentially nefa..

I stood out as different in Llandudno but by learning about its past and mine, it became the home I loveLooking back, a good deal of my younger years seemed to be perched somewhere between if only and my fate. If only my hair was straight, if only my bum was flatter, if only our house was ordinary, if only mum didn’t speak Welsh, if only dad could settle in Wales, if only I lived somewhere else, anywhere, anywhere but here. I often felt just too big for my world, out of place. Suspended on a faultline of creative adaptation, I invented Tessa. Tessa was blonde and white and lovely, and she lived somewhere in my dreamscape. She provided me with a lot of comfort in my small girl days, an esca..

US students are relearning how to chitchat after lockdown damaged social skills. Maybe Rishi Sunak could take a courseAre you having a lovely weekend? Nice jumper, is it new? Did you see Doctor Who last night? You see, it’s not difficult. Yet the younger generation seems to be struggling with the ancient art of small talk. Speaking about nothing but doing it pleasantly is an essential social lubricant. Sadly it seems to be drying up.Students in the US are taking lessons in “conducting chitchat” after losing these social skills during lockdown and no longer knowing how to start anodyne face-to-face conversations. College professors are giving tips such as “ask questions about their we..

England’s chief medical officer owned up to experts’ ignorance of psychology. If only others had been so candid in admitting their errorsIn 2002, Iain Duncan Smith notoriously declared: “Do not underestimate the determination of a quiet man.” It might have been a rather poor self-description, but it serves as a perfect representation of the chief medical officer for England, Chris Whitty.For nearly two days he quietly answered questions put to him at the Covid inquiry; his tone uniformly reasonable, his demeanour consistently mild. Whitty’s former deputy Jonathan Van-Tam, who followed his erstwhile boss at the inquiry, summed him up perfectly at the inquiry. “I’m the one who ch..

After a lifetime cursed with awkward social interactions, learning to take myself less seriously has been a wonderful giftI’ve gotten to know my postman. Being home during the day means I’m there to answer the door and exchange chit-chat. Sometimes about the weather, sometimes about my dogs who greet him with unfortunate stereotypical anger. Occasionally, I’ll pass him in the street and we wave or smile. How nice … in theory. Somehow, in every instance there is an awkwardness, a palpably tense energy of a high school play where someone is doing their best but keeps flubbing a line, standing off-mark or having their wig fall off.Postman Pat (not his real name) visited my house once no..

I was just his little sister, now I’m trying to free him from an Egyptian prisonThe drive north out of Cairo from my family home is one I know well. It’s the route up to the coastal city of Alexandria, a joy-filled trip I often used to make to Egypt’s north-coast beaches. On the morning of 17 November 2022, however, almost exactly a year ago today, the journey could not have felt more different. We might have been travelling in that same direction, but our destination this time was the prison where my older brother, Alaa Abd El-Fattah, is locked away. He’s one of Egypt’s most high-profile pro-democracy activists. A political prisoner, he’s been in various jails for much of the pa..

The psychologist, 40, talks about childhood memories, the shortness of life, always being honest and the answer to most of your problems: beansI was a bookish, quiet and nerdy child. I felt like an outsider, although I wonder if most kids feel that. I was rarely wild – being a black kid in east London, I was always aware of assumptions being made and of what others might get away with, but I might not.My earliest memory is having a picnic on the UK coast: sandwiches, chicken drumsticks in tinfoil and a windy car park. It’s a happy one, for sure. Continue reading...

Aberystwyth University study first to show a creative group with lower scores on psychotic traits than general populationCreative types – musicians, painters, writers – are often regarded as a tormented and difficult bunch but a study has revealed that at least one subsection of the artistic community may have grasped the trick of staying well balanced.A study of magicians around the world, led by Aberystwyth University’s psychology department, suggests that illusionists may be less prone to mental health difficulties than other creatives and the general population. Continue reading...

The stories people tell me about their lives can be funny, surprising, tragic or shocking – and some stay with me for yearsI can distinctly remember being in the back seat of the family car on a long journey (to Devon probably – that drive felt interminable), looking at all the other cars full of people and thinking, “Where on earth are they all going and why?” As my eyes went funny trying to keep up with the traffic flicking past, it blew my mind to imagine everyone as the main character in the dramas of their own lives, with a busy morning behind them and a plan for the afternoon ahead. It’s a thought which has never really left me. As a middle-aged woman, one of my ideas of top ..

Association of Clinical Psychologists must pay £20,000 after intervening in family justice case where it mounted ‘critique of expert’A professional body ordered to pay costs of £20,000 by the president of the family division after intervening in an appeal regarding the qualifications of a court-appointed expert has said the ruling was “unfair” and could have a “chilling effect”.The Association of Clinical Psychologists UK (ACP-UK) said it had acted in good faith on a matter of “public protection”, after being criticised for conducting itself in a “wholly exceptional manner” during an appeal before the most senior family judge in England and Wales. Continue reading...

When I felt lonely growing up, my grandmother’s company and cuisine were a soothing balmMy grandmother collected me from school every day and invariably brought me along to pick up any missing ingredients for dinner. I was a dark-skinned child with thick, curly hair, and she could have passed for white. People often didn’t know what to make of us, but rarely questioned our relationship aloud.Once, at Schwegmann’s, our local grocery store, the cashier looked from me to my grandmother several times, a quizzical expression on her face. “How you come to be together?” she finally asked. My grandmother beamed at her, tousled my hair. “That’s my granddaughter,” she said, as if I was..

The idea, according to TikTok, is to set wild expectations for yourself – and convince your mind to believe in themIn the 1950s, Norman Vincent Peale called it “positive thinking”. In the noughties, Oprah promoted it through her talkshow as “manifesting”. Just six or so months ago, TikTok dubbed it “lucky girl syndrome”.The belief that “if you think it, it will come” has long been popular among the young and hopeful. Now it has another name: delulu – as in delusional. Continue reading...

After Matthew Perry’s death was announced, a clip of the actor debating the science of addiction on the BBC’s Newsnight programme went viral. To find out where we’ve got to in our understanding of addiction, Ian Sample talks to Dr Nora Volkow, director of the US National Institute on Drug Abuse. She explains how brain imaging has advanced our understanding of this chronic diseaseClips: NBC, BBC Continue reading...

We focus on friendships, but encounters with those we hardly know are vital tooThe stranger struck up conversation on a delayed flight between Florida and New York. We were both struggling to entertain our toddlers, and we commiserated awhile. After the children fell asleep, he told me he’d recently left the Mormon church. He said he missed the community and the certainty he once felt. He was still figuring out how to raise a child without faith: for example, would I say there was a heaven if my daughter asked, even if I didn’t fully believe it?Maybe it feels more natural to speak intimately with a stranger on a flight, when you are both uprooted and disoriented, not quite sure if it’s..

In the NSW southern highlands, Horse Aid is working to ‘un-soldier’ former defence personnel and ‘un-race’ thoroughbredsGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailScott Brodie and Mel Baker stand in the middle of the indoor training ring on a horse farm in the New South Wales southern highlands. A magnificent black gelding and former racehorse, Treble Clef, canters around the rails, stopping now and then, pricking its ears and regarding them quizzically.Brodie, a 60-year-old former horse trainer and chief riding instructor with the NSW mounted police, speaks softly to both the animal and Baker, a medically discharged former Royal Australian Navy chaplain.Sign up for our rundown of mu..

Helen MacNamara painted a picture of a homogenous, unpleasant top table. Experts says this lack of diversity can matter beyond the workplace itselfHelen MacNamara, the UK’s second-most senior official at the height of the Covid pandemic, lifted a lid this week on a “toxic environment” at the heart of Downing Street, in which female civil servants became “invisible overnight” and were routinely spoken over or ignored. A picture emerges of an unpleasant and unequal workplace, but experts say that the apparent exclusion of women from decision-making is also likely to have impaired the UK’s response to the pandemic.At the most basic level, a lack of representation at the table exclud..

London tube game Metro Memory is a surprise hit, with geography books also finding favour with readersIn a world where we get from A to B by following the shortest route on our phones or satnavs, are cartographers mapping their way back into our national psyche?Rather than ignoring what is around us, we appear to be increasingly fascinated with locations and their significance, whether it is through a viral tube map game, YouTube videos or books about geopolitics. Continue reading...

Texas A&M University researchers say findings suggest using negative emotions as tools can be effectiveThey say you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. But when it comes to tackling a tricky task, researchers have found that getting angry can also be a powerful motivator.The experiments suggest people who are angry perform better on a set of challenging tasks than those who are emotionally neutral. Continue reading...

There’s some inspired direction as Misery meets Ex Machina in this sci-fi psychological thriller In what has the distinctively zoned-out vibe of another lockdown-born project, Natalie Kennedy’s sci-fi psychological thriller sees Clare Rivers (Rachel Shelley), an author with writer’s block, sign up for a deluxe writing retreat operated entirely by AI. Sealed hermetically into her unit by a virus that corrupts the system, she can’t leave until she has produced a book, making Blank play out like Misery and Ex Machina spliced.Taking place in a near future where writing is all holographic word processors and genial AI assistants rather than tattered notebooks and half-eaten Twixes, the pr..

The overwhelming fear of contracting an illness or an excessive focus on symptoms are debilitating conditions, exacerbated by Dr GoogleThe modern mind is a column where experts discuss mental health issues they are seeing in their workIn an era where a world of information is just a few clicks away, health anxiety has taken on a new dimension. Many of us have experienced moments of worry when seemingly innocuous symptoms trigger thoughts of dire health conditions. Could that persistent headache be a sign of a brain tumour rather than just a consequence of too many late nights? Is that peculiar skin lump a harbinger of melanoma? A quick Google search often exacerbates these worries, leaving u..

My friends came to a silent supper with their dead friends and relatives so that we could grieve our loved ones togetherI don’t normally feel worried about having my friends over for dinner. Usually, I’ll be covered in splashes of soup and partially dressed when they arrive, but tonight I feel nervous.Figuring out who to invite was complicated. Not only did they have to be available at short notice, but they had to be up for it, open to something different. Because this evening everyone has been asked to bring a plus-one … someone who has died. Continue reading...

Celebrity culture, the ‘Zoom effect’ and unrealistic beauty standards have contributed to the rise of the poorly understood dysmorphic condition On a typical day, Eve* would wake up and start prodding at her body while still in bed. She would avoid catching sight of herself while showering, or while trying to find an outfit to best hide her body.“The day would usually be spent at work thinking about what to eat or not to eat and worrying about how I appeared to others, making sure I was holding in my stomach or standing or sitting behind something. I would check myself in every reflective surface I passed during my entire waking moments: shop windows, bathrooms, cars, mirrors.” Conti..

Researchers say surprising result points to level of self-awareness that has implications for animal rights and welfareWith their colourful plumage and prominent combs, roosters might be forgiven for sneaking the odd glance in the mirror – particular as research now suggests the birds may be able to recognise their own reflection.The ability to recognise oneself in the mirror has so far been found in a handful of animals, including elephants, dolphins, great apes and certain fish and birds. Continue reading...