Category: psychology
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #39 — Your Mind Wanders 30% of the Time
You are at work reading a report that one of your colleagues has written and you realize that you’ve just read the same sentence about three times. Instead of thinking about what you were reading, your mind wandered. Mind wandering is similar to, but not the same thing as daydreaming. Psychologists use daydreaming to refer…
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #38 — Even The Illusion Of Progress Is Motivating
You are given a frequent buyer card for your local coffeeshop. Each time you buy a cup of coffee you get a stamp on your card. When the card is filled you get a free cup of coffee. Here are two different scenarios: Card A: The card has 10 boxes for the stamps, and when…
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #37 — People Assume It's You, Not The Situation
A man is walking down a busy city street on his way to an appointment, and he sees what looks like a college student drop a folder of papers. The papers scatter on the ground and the man glances over but keeps on walking. What do you think? Why didn’t the man stop to help…
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #36 — People are Inherently Lazy
Ok, I’ll admit it, I am exaggerating a little bit when I say people are inherently lazy. What I really mean is that people will do the least amount of work possible to get a task done. Is lazy another word for efficient? — Over eons of evolution humans have learned that they will survive…
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The Psychology of Being Without a Cell Phone
Two weeks ago my iphone was stolen (or I might have lost it — I’m still not sure). I’ve been fascinated by the psychology of what it felt like to not have a cell phone. Of course, there was a time when no one had cell phones — It’s hard to remember these days, but…
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #34 — Too Much Stress Results In Poor Performance
A few days ago I found myself in a hotel room outside of Chicago with my 19 year old daughter moaning and sometimes howling in pain. She’d been sick for a week, each day with a new symptom, and this morning her eardrum felt like it was going to burst. We decided that I should…
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The Insight Improv Sessions
I sat in a folding chair in a high-ceilinged room in an old building in Cambridge, Massachusetts. When I signed up for my first improvisation theater class (many years ago), I didn’t know what to expect. As I waited for the “leader” to arrive I felt more than a little apprehensive. The room was spare,…
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In The Zone: 10 Characteristics of the Flow State
Have you ever been in a flow state? You are engrossed in some activity; maybe it is something physical like rock climbing or skiing; maybe it is something artistic or creative, like playing the piano or painting, or maybe it is an everyday activity, like working on a powerpoint presentation or teaching a class… whatever…
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #32 — Synchronous activity bonds the group
What do members of a marching band, fans at a college football game, and people at Sunday church have in common? They are all engaging in “synchronous” activity. What is synchronous activity? — It is when you take action with others, where everyone is moving, singing, chanting, in time together. What happens when we engage…
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A Five Minute Version of Neuro Web Design
I get wonderful emails from readers of my book, Neuro Web Design: What makes them click. People write me and say how much they loved the book, etc, etc. It’s one of the benefits of writing a book! A request from a reader — A few days ago I got one of those emails and…
