psychology

it was Dr. Diamond’s demonstration that the body instantly went weak in response to unhealthy emotional attitudes or mental stresses that had the greatest ongoing clinical influence. His refinement of the muscle-testing technique, the one used by most practitioners, was used in this study over a period of twenty years.

As social creatures, humans have an innate desire for connection and caring. We want to be connected to other people and we want to care for other people. At a basic biological level, we need to relate to others to survive and thrive; and, as a result, are neurochemically motivated to fulfill this need. More recently, researchers have extended this

For this reason alone, we may be willing to agree to perform a larger favor than the one we received, merely to relieve ourselves of the psychological burden of debt. A Japanese proverb makes this point eloquently: “There’s nothing more expensive than that which comes for free.”

The noted archaeologist Richard Leakey ascribes the essence of what makes us human to the reciprocity system. He claims that we are human because our ancestors learned to share food and skills “in an honored network of obligation.” Cultural anthropologists such as Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox view this “web of indebtedness” as a unique adaptive

That’s simply reality: if it feels like it’s you versus the world, chances are it’s really just you versus yourself.

The fundamental attribution error in social psychology . This is the basic human tendency (read: bias) to explain someone's behavior as deriving from their underlying personality, rather than from their situation or role. More

One reason for the low correlations between individuals’ circumstances and their satisfaction with life is that both experienced happiness and life satisfaction are largely determined by the genetics of temperament.

This, I want to remember—and, if possible, solidifying it as soon as we can, whether it be by describing an experience to someone else or to ourselves, if no one else is available (in essence, rehearsing it to help consolidation). Manipulating information, playing around with it and talking it through, making it come alive through stories and

obrigado). The future reach of the obligation is nicely connoted in a Japanese word for thank you, sumimasen, which, in its literal form, means “this will not end.”