Psychology Explained
Evergreen context on psychology, distilled into calm, readable pulses.
Open in BriflioA surprising number of everyday decisions run on mental shortcuts most people have never had named for them — narrative bias, loss aversion, the planning fallacy. Briflio's Psychology hub explains the mechanisms behind how people actually think and choose, drawn from research rather than pop-science shorthand, so you can recognize these patterns in your own reasoning and in the news you read.
Operant conditioning
Operant conditioning, also called instrumental conditioning, is a learning process in which voluntary behaviors are modified by association with the addition of reward or aversive stimuli.
Flow (psychology)
Flow in positive psychology, also known colloquially as being in the zone or focused, is the mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity.
Theory of mind
In psychology and philosophy, theory of mind is the capacity to understand other individuals by ascribing mental states to them.
Cognitive dissonance
In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is described as a mental phenomenon in which people unknowingly or subconsciously hold fundamentally conflicting cognitions.
Confirmation bias
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs, values, or decisions.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a conceptualization of the needs that motivate human behaviour, which was proposed in 1943 by the American psychologist Abraham Maslow.
The psychology that can lead investors to make bad financial decisions
Recent research suggests even people training for careers in finance can fall prey to overconfidence, loss aversion and other psychological biases.
Almost everyone naturally turns left when walking – and we still have no idea why
Across ages, genders, cultures and conditions, crowds always walk in a counter-clockwise spiral.
Daydreams, mind-wandering and rumination: What you think about can affect your feelings and mood
Different types of thoughts are meaningfully tied to our emotional well-being.
Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta uses ‘desirable difficulties’ to prepare his players – is this a good coaching strategy?
Arteta’s tactics include delaying the players’ meals, unexpectedly changing their travel plans, and making dressing rooms hotter.
AI may quickly generate ideas, but working with people leads to more creative ones
A recent experiment found that people working with ChatGPT generated fewer unique ideas than those who collaborated with other humans.
What kind of a person am I? How fear and rejection can underpin OCD
Some people with obsessive-compulsive disorder have experienced traumatic events as children, and develop a deeply held fear of who they are or might become.
How deep do AI relationships really go? An expert in attachment theory explains
Can AI-human connections ever meet the psychological criteria of attachment – the relationships that hold people’s lives together?.
Women are more emotionally intelligent than men, and that’s a problem – landmark study
New research - it’s one of the largest studies of emotional intelligence to date.
A Cree psychotherapist reflects on relationship, belonging and the illusion of a fixed self
An Anishinaabe storyteller and healer from Serpent River First Nation shares Ojibwe teachings on suffering, acceptance and Ceremony as ways of connecting Indigenous healing wisdom with psychological practice.
The ick: the psychology of why a romantic partner can suddenly repulse you
Ever felt a sudden wave of cringe toward someone you were actually into – congratulations, you’ve caught ‘the ick’.
Academics in South Africa have to focus on ‘outputs’: what’s lost when other work’s not counted
Transformation in South Africa’s institutions of higher education has been slow and uneven.
Celebrity Traitors: neuroscientist on whether you can really make someone yawn by faking it
James Acaster, Maya Jama and King Kenny must make another contestant yawn.
‘Lazy, weak, bewitched’ – how stigma stops Uganda’s children from getting help, and what schools can do about it
School mental health programmes must address both emotional wellbeing and structural pressures such as poverty, stigma and exclusion.
What faces in paintings can tell us about how we perceive emotion
Complex emotions can be perceived in painted faces.
When prepping for disaster, don’t forget to pack your teddy bear
How prepared are you for an emergency?.
Are autistic people more vulnerable to extremist content?
People with rigid thinking patterns who prefer routine and order may be drawn to extremist groups’ black-and-white solutions.
Horror films exploit how human vision works to deliver movies’ best scares
Scary movies create tension in that space between perception and recognition, as your brain tries to determine what, exactly, you’re seeing.
Members of right-leaning parties prefer leaders with ‘dark triad’ personality traits
The ‘dark triad’ is made up of narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy.
This sponge has holes. Some find that truly disgusting
Trypophobia is more than an internet meme.
The Traitors: the psychology works differently for celebrity players like Rob Beckett and Romesh Ranganathan
Fame as an important affect on how the game is played.
I’m a Philly forensic psychologist who has conducted dozens of psychopathic evaluations – here’s why an evaluation of R.C. Horsch in the ‘80s didn’t identify him as a possible psychopath
Philadelphia police and FBI are conducting a massive investigation into the home where the late R.C.
The upside of untidiness: why a little mess can be good for your home
New research into Kiwi households suggests clutter can help with everyday routines, make shared spaces more useful and even support family relationships.
AI behaves more like a brain than a database – cognitive science’s role in its origin story helps explain why
Modern AI owes its existence to both cognitive and computer science.
Why do we find certain things beautiful? A psychologist’s new book offers a bold answer
Nicholas Humphrey’s new book, Why Is the World So Beautiful?, posits a theory of beauty – but is beauty too manifold to surrender its mysteries to one theory?.