In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week, we take a bit of a detour to look at philosophical razors. I first heard of philosophical razors quite recently, in a poem by Suzette Benjamin that mentioned Occam’s razor. So, what is it and why is philosophy doing some […]
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is nonsuicidal self-injury. Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a fancy way of saying self-harm behaviour that differentiates it from suicidality. Cutting and burning are the most common methods, but there are a variety of other methods people use, including
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is addictive personality. The concept of an addictive personality, although often referred to in pop psychology, is actually less of a thing than you might think. For there to be an addictive personality, that would suggest that there
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is critical thinking. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says that, while there are various different definitions, the basic underlying idea is “careful thinking directed to a goal.” Wikipedia describes critical thinking as “the analysis of facts to form
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is pop psychology. Wikipedia describes popular (pop) psychology as “the concepts and theories about human mental life and behavior that are purportedly based on psychology and that find credence among and pass muster with the populace.” Pop psychology is to
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is the psychology of tyranny. History is filled with tyrants causing massive damage to humanity. Some of them take power by force, while others, like Adolf Hitler, were chosen by the people. How is it that people are
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is the euphemism treadmill. Psychologist and linguist Stephen Pinker coined the term euphemism treadmill in a 1994 article in the New York Times. It refers to a process by which words that are used as a euphemism for
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week, we’re taking a bit of a detour to look at neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to make changes to itself in response to conditions and experiences, including forming new neuronal connections. This ability is maintained in adulthood, although it’s
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week we’re looking at the psychology behind conspiracy theories. This topic came up in a recent post by Andy of Eden in Babylon. In particular, the Q-Anon conspiracy theory has become quite popular, despite its utter absurdity. Then there’s the
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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is obsessive compulsive personality disorder. When people say that someone is “a little OCD,” chances are, what they’re referring to has little, if anything, to do with obsessive compulsive disorder. What they’re talking about is actually far more
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