Questions tagged [psychology]
The scientific study of behaviour and of the mind.
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Do men have more extreme variations than women?
This question was considered unsuitable for Skeptics and I think it is more suited to BIology than Cognitive Sciences
I was reading this article which I found interesting. It is not supported with ...
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Is kissing a natural human activity?
The word natural here is meant in contrast to it being a sociological construct.
Is kissing in all its forms something natural for humans? Is it instinctively erotic? Or is it just a conventional ...
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Why is it advised that infants are fed mother's milk?
I have heard that mother's milk is preferred over other baby foods, because it contains immunoglobulins (secretory IgA), and other essential nutrients.
But why is mother's milk so special? Any ...
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Is monogamy a human innate behaviour?
As the question states, got curious and I was wondering if monogamy is an innate human behaviour or is it because of how we built society (religion, traditions, etc.)?
Let's say we go back in time, ...
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Why do humans suffer anxiety when they view "Trypophobia trigger images"?
When you type Trypophobia Trigger Images in google, you see a variety of images with irregular lumps and bumps among some more gory images.
Many people report that these images induce phobia like ...
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Why does black and yellow indicate danger?
It is a well-known fact that combination of black and yellow indicates danger or poisonousness.
In western society it seems obvious this comes from bees and wasps, but it seems like many tropical ...
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Why do we urinate more when we are nervous?
This question is a result of my personal experience... But I guess that is common for many of us.
My school timing is 8:00 am to 1:30 pm (usually). During normal school days I typically urinate one ...
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Why I have to pee more often in low temperature? [closed]
I realised that I have to pee more often in winter or simply the temperature is low. Is there any scientific explanation, or just simply psychology?
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Do animals suffer from "Human" mental disorders?
It is tragic, but apparently Killer whales and Dolphins can commit suicide too (e.g. here)...
This suggests they can become depressed. I wondered whether they were "clinically" depressed like many ...
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Why do we like music?
Music is, of course, just a sequence of sounds. Sounds are vibrations in the air, which our ears detect. So why do we find certain sequences of sounds to be appealing? What makes us want to hear these ...
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Does the genetic expression of specific physical traits ever correlate to behaviour?
Over at skeptics, there were a couple questions asked as to the correlation of specific physical traits in relation to personality/behaviour. For instance, the simian line as well as red hair. Now, ...
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The genetic and physiological origins of laughter?
This Wikipedia article defines laughter in many terms, such as...
"a visual expression of happiness, or an inward feeling of joy"
and
"a part of human behavior regulated by the brain, helping ...
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Is there a biological basis to physical attraction?
Is there something encoded within us that makes us attracted to, e.g., someone
taller or shorter
with blonde or brunette hair
with green or blue eyes?
Or, is this phenomenon completely based on ...
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What is the motivation behind fluorinated pharmaceuticals?
From what little research I've done, it appears that a significant portion of modern psychoactive drugs are fluorinated in one way or another (for example, Buproprion, Fluvoxamine, or any number of ...
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Why do bad smells make us vomit?
According to my understanding, vomiting happens when the body wants to get rid of something that we have ingested or put in our mouths to get it out of the body.
So why is it that when something ...
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Do other young mammals turn their backs to their parent when upset?
I have noticed that upset toddlers turn their back to someone who wronged them and huff. Most adults don't do this, so I don't know how this could be a learned behaviour. Do other animals express this ...
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Do birds grieve and feel emotion?
Crows are surprisingly clever with tool making/use and even understanding displacement water over sand! Clearly there's some relatively high level cognitive processes going on up in those avian brains....
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Why do living things go belly up as they die? [closed]
I have seen birds, lizards, frogs, fish, etc in various places on their back dead. May be insecticides cause them to flip over but I do not believe every upside down creature died by poison as stated ...
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Are there any other animals that become attached to a non-living object?
Do any animals become psychologically attached to any non-living object that is not useful to the animal for any of its physical needs, like some children do to stuffed animals? Some children are so ...
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Are there any parasites that alter human behavior in a self destructive way?
There seems to be quite a few examples of parasites taking over the behavior of insects in a way that leads to the death of the host. A couple of examples include:
Spinochordodes tellinii: A ...
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Are there any known health benefits / risks from milliampere current (0.1-2 mA) on forehead?
This is about devices like that sold by foc.us that allows user to apply a small current on a specific part of the forehead.
For the sake of this question I use the foc.us "gamer" model as example. ...
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How do we share pain?
When somebody else tells me about his or her itching or pain in some specific body part, I sometimes begin to feel similar feelings.
I can think of about three explanations:
I feel pain all over my ...
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Why do children prefer sweeter foods?
As we get older, we tend to lose our sweet tooth and become more tolerant to bitter foods, like vegetables. However, I never understood how this works. Why is it that children prefer sweeter foods, ...
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What is the focus distance of a 3D screen?
I've thought long and hard about wheter this is the appropriate section for this question, because I guess it's kind of an interdisciplinary subject.
My understanding of stereopsis (please, correct ...
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Why does our face get red during anger?
My attempt: This site says that it is due to flight or fight mechanism, which results in more amount of blood being passed to face causing red face.
But isn't it wasteful for our body to send more ...
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What causes anorexia nervorsa?
I've heard of anorexia nervosa being a severe loss of appetite. I'm wondering what causes such disease in humans?
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Can the negative afterimage appear only if there is light or is it possible in darkness?
Reading the following paragraph:
After staring at the red and blue shamrock, you saw a green and
yellow afterimage. Opponent-process theory proposes that as you stared
at the red and blue ...
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Can apes have schizophrenia?
Many animals can become mentally ill, but I could not find any account of animals showing schizophrenia, not even apes. I could only find this, but it seems very vague.
Is there any evolutionary ...
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Is there a physiological difference between love and infatuation?
I find that people generally distinguish between love and infatuation. Is there a physiological difference between the two? Or are they biologically identical, and the difference is circumstantial?
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Does the brain consume more energy when a person is stressed or anxious
When a person is anxious or stressed or suffering from chronic depression, it is observed that the person is usually tired.
Is there there a connection between fatigue and racing thoughts/obsessions.
...
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Animal models to study depression [closed]
Is there a non-invasive animal model to study the pathogenesis (i.e., the development of) depression?
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From inflammation to sickness and depression: when the immune system subjugates the brain
Recently, some research, for example this article has proposed that inflammation can cause innate immune cells to produce pro-inflammatory cytokines that act on the brain to cause sickness behaviour.
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Does anxiety about weight or eating cause people to become overweight?
A while ago I saw this TED talk about the futility of dieting. The speaker suggests that a body maintains a homeostatic weight point and returns to that weight after dieting has stopped:
Turns out ...
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What is the difference between clinical and non-clinical depression, and is there a term for different severity of the bipolar disorder?
I was looking for a term which describes a bipolar disorder of lesser severity.
I know from experience from someone I know well, what a very severe case of the bipolar disorder looks like, when an ...
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What's the evolutionary reason behind feeling 'sorrow'?
As it's established that life's design is a product of evolution, what advantage does emotions like sadness play in the life of an individual/species ?
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Does isolation have any effect upon mouse behavior?
I work with a lot of mice. I don't do any behavioral analysis, I just inject DNA or RNA and do imaging assays. However, I have noticed some effect of isolation on mouse behavior. Normally, the mice ...
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Predictive Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) for Bipolar Disorder
Are there any validated SNPs that are either predictive of developing bipolar spectrum disorder or are associated with its pathophysiology?
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Can the psychology of a person alter their immune system and health?
Can the psychology of a middle-aged person alter their immune health? I have read about the different types of linkage between nervous system and immune system.
Can someone outline the general facts ...
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How to interpret this statement on missing heritability
I'm currently studying a behavioral genetic course, but still, I feel that I'm lacking many basic concepts.
A particular topic I don't understand is missing heritability.
Here's an example regarding ...
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Is arachnophobia connected to lower immunity against spider toxins?
Are arachnophobics more subceptible to toxical effects coming from spider toxins?
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Why do people feel shame when exposed nakedly?
Why do people feel shame? Meaning the kind of shame specifically related to exposing 'private parts'.
Where does it come from (i.e. social factors due to upbringing, inherent in our genes etc.)?
...
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Development and function of spindle neurons
In his book How to Create a Mind author Ray Kurzweil makes some claims about spindle neurons that he provides no source for.
Concretely he states that spindle cells:
Are Involved in handling emotion ...
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Fear in elephants
It has been noted that elephants trained for war, as was done occasionally in earlier times, have still shown a tendency to panic in battle much more often when compared to a war horse trained for the ...
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Does the brain store information and personality traits in different areas?
I'm aware that muscle memory, language etc can remain largely intact after brain injury that impairs other forms of memory, suggesting that different kinds of memory are stored in different places in ...
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Why pain caused by blunt objects vanish after some time and return at the event of touching?
Background
When any bone/muscle of body is hit badly by a blunt object, it hurts pretty bad of course for some time. But, after some time the pain goes off completely or to some extent.
Then, if we ...
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How does being afraid or nervous affect mental performance?
It's known that when somebody is not relaxed (nervous,worried....) , they can't concentrate , what exactly in being nervous is the problem?
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Empty room, Room full with stuffs & Auditory adaptation to reflection of sounds
Background
When a room is full with stuffs like furniture, electronic utilities, books etc. it's hard to hear reflections of sounds made by us (talking, playing an instrument, sound from falling ...
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In what way is ADHD genetic? [closed]
According to Psychcentral depression, bipolar disorder, ADHD, schizophrenia and autism are traceable to the same inherited genetic variations
According to AsapSCIENCE, depression could be genetic due ...
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Long-term effects of antihistamines on mind and CNS [closed]
Can maybe someone share knowledge or guesses on the following questions:
Does the prolonged use of antihistamines cause long-term effects on mind or CNS?
Are there any known evidences of their ...
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Are small CO₂ concentrations devastating to certain cognitive tasks?
A new study shows strong effects of what should be a negligible CO2 concentration.
The paper "Is CO2 an Indoor Pollutant? Direct Effects of Low-to-Moderate CO2 Concentrations on Human Decision-Making ...
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