Psychology

132 ideas, each explained on one page with a 60-second lesson you can play right there.

Allostatic load Allostatic load is the cumulative physical wear and tear on your body caused by chronic or repeated stress.
Amygdala The amygdala is a pair of almond-sized clusters of neurons located deep inside the temporal lobes of the brain.
Analysis paralysis Overthinking and excessive research freeze choices instead of improving them.
Anchoring effect The anchoring effect is a bias where people rely too heavily on an initial reference number when estimating values or making financial decisions.
Artificial consciousness Artificial consciousness is the idea that a non-biological machine or artificial intelligence could have subjective, inner experiences.
Attachment in adults Adult attachment theory shows how early caregiver bonds shape trust, emotional distance, and relationship stability in adulthood.
Attachment Styles Attachment styles describe patterns infants use to stay close to caregivers, shaping expectations in future relationships.
Authority bias Authority bias is the tendency to assume an opinion or order is accurate simply because it comes from an authority figure.
Automaticity Automaticity is the ability to carry out actions and mental tasks without thinking about the low-level steps.
Availability heuristic The availability heuristic makes people judge how common or severe an event is by how easily examples come to mind.
Avoidant coping Avoidant coping reduces stress by evading a problem rather than fixing it, bringing immediate relief at the cost of compounding future damage.
Behavioral activation Behavioral activation is a form of psychotherapy that treats depression by scheduling specific, rewarding activities into a person's routine.
Behavioral addiction Behavioral addiction is a compulsion to repeat a rewarding action despite real harm, sharing the same brain adaptations as drug addiction.
Benjamin Libet Benjamin Libet was an American neuroscientist who studied human consciousness at the University of California, San Francisco.
Burnout (psychology) Occupational burnout stems from unmanaged workplace stress.
Catchiness Catchiness is a measure of how easily a tune, phrase, or advertising slogan is remembered and how hard it is to forget.
Chronotype A chronotype is a person's natural biological tendency to sleep and be active at specific times during a 24-hour day.
Circadian Rhythm Circadian rhythms are roughly 24-hour internal biological cycles.
Codependency Codependency is a relational pattern where one person enables another's self-destructive behavior through high self-sacrifice and control.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Cognitive behavioral therapy treats automatic negative thoughts as unverified hypotheses, combining cognitive reframing with new behavioral habits.
Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia is the first-line treatment for chronic insomnia, relying on sleep restriction and stimulus control.
Cognitive Dissonance Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort you feel when you hold conflicting beliefs, or when your actions clash with your values.
Cognitive Distortions A cognitive distortion is an exaggerated or irrational thought pattern that causes you to perceive reality inaccurately.
Cognitive reframing Cognitive reframing is a technique where you identify and change the way you view situations, thoughts, or emotions.
Cold reading Cold reading uses high-probability guesses and subtle body language cues to make strangers reveal their own details while believing the reader knew them.
Compatibilism Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism can exist together without contradiction.
Confirmation Bias Confirmation bias leads people to seek, interpret, and remember evidence that fits their prior beliefs while ignoring contrary facts.
Conspicuous consumption Conspicuous consumption is buying expensive goods or services beyond practical need to publicly display wealth, income, and social status.
Cue-dependent forgetting Cue-dependent forgetting happens when memories remain stored in the brain but cannot be recalled without the right retrieval cues.
DARVO DARVO stands for Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender.
Defence mechanism Defence mechanisms are unconscious psychological tactics that protect the mind from anxiety and maintain emotional homeostasis.
Dementia Dementia is an umbrella term for a progressive decline in mental abilities caused by physical damage to the brain, which interferes with daily life.
Determinism Determinism is the philosophical view that every event is the inevitable result of preceding events and the laws of nature.
Doomscrolling Doomscrolling is the habit of continuously consuming distressing digital content.
Dream interpretation Dream interpretation is the process of assigning meaning to the images and stories experienced during sleep.
Dunning-Kruger Effect The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias where people with low ability in a specific area overestimate their competence.
Earworm An earworm is a catchy piece of music or a phrase that continuously loops in your mind without your deliberate choice.
Encoding specificity principle Information is easiest to retrieve when the physical, auditory, or mental state at recall matches the conditions present during learning.
Escalation of commitment Why people double down on failing projects to protect their own past choices, violating standard cost-benefit reasoning.
Eudaimonia Eudaimonia is an ancient Greek term for the highest human good, commonly understood as human flourishing or living well.
Exposure therapy Exposure therapy treats anxiety by confronting fear triggers without escaping, helping the brain learn that the feared outcome will not occur.
Extinction (psychology) Extinction stops a learned behavior by withholding reinforcement or cues, creating a new memory rather than erasing the old one.
Fatalism Fatalism is the philosophical doctrine that all events are fixed by fate, leaving humans powerless to change their future outcomes.
Fear of negative evaluation Fear of negative evaluation is the dread and expectation of being judged unfavorably by others, driving social anxiety, conformity, and avoidance.
Fight-or-flight response How the fight-or-flight response instantly redirects blood, releases glucose, and suppresses digestion during perceived threats.
FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) FOMO is the anxiety that others are having rewarding experiences without you, intensified by social feeds into constant psychological distress.
Foot-in-the-door technique The foot-in-the-door technique gets people to agree to a huge request by securing a tiny yes first.
Forgetting curve The forgetting curve shows that memory loss is steepest right after learning.
Framing Effect The framing effect makes people pick different options based on whether identical outcomes are presented as gains or losses.
Freudian Unconscious The Freudian unconscious is the part of the mind holding hidden thoughts, drives, and memories that a person cannot inspect directly.
Frisson Frisson is a brief physical reaction to rewarding stimuli like music or art that creates skin tingling, goosebumps, and pleasure.
Fundamental attribution error The fundamental attribution error makes us blame people's character for their actions while ignoring their circumstances.
Gambling Gambling is the wagering of money or something else of value on a random event with the intention of winning a prize.
Gaslighting Gaslighting is the psychological manipulation of a person into questioning their own perception of reality.
Goal setting Specific, hard targets systematically outperform easy goals and do-your-best advice by focusing attention, effort, and persistence.
Habit A habit is a routine behavior that is repeated regularly and occurs with little to no conscious thought.
Habit reversal training Habit reversal training treats tics, hair pulling, and nail biting by teaching a physical action that blocks the repetitive urge.
Harry Harlow Harry Harlow was an American psychologist who studied maternal separation, dependency, and social isolation in rhesus monkeys.
Hedonic treadmill Learn what the hedonic treadmill is, how psychological adaptation restores our happiness set point, and why big life events rarely change our mood forever.
Hedonism Hedonism is a family of philosophical ideas built on the claim that pleasure is the primary good and pain is the primary bad.
Hindsight bias Hindsight bias makes past events seem predictable after they happen, distorting memories and creating false confidence about future forecasts.
Hofstadter's law Hofstadter's law is the rule that complex work always takes longer than expected, even when you factor in the law itself.
Human echolocation Human echolocation is the ability to detect and map objects by producing sounds and listening to the returning echoes.
Id, ego and superego The id, ego, and superego are three interacting parts of the mind that Sigmund Freud proposed to explain internal conflict.
Ikigai Ikigai is a Japanese concept that refers to a person's reason for living or what makes life feel worth it.
Implementation intention An implementation intention is a self-regulation strategy that uses an if-then sentence to link a specific future cue to an exact behavior.
Impostor syndrome Impostor syndrome is the belief that your skills, accomplishments, and success are fraudulent, despite clear evidence that you are competent.
Imprinting (psychology) Imprinting is a rapid learning process during a brief early window that permanently shapes an animal's social and mating preferences.
Insomnia Insomnia is a sleep disorder where a person struggles to fall asleep or stay asleep for as long as needed.
Involuntary memory Involuntary memory is a type of memory that occurs when everyday sensory cues trigger past recollections without conscious effort.
Learned helplessness Helplessness is the brain's default reaction to uncontrollable stress, while experiencing control is what has to be learned.
Learned optimism Learned optimism is the skill of consciously challenging negative self-talk when dealing with setbacks.
Levels-of-processing effect The levels-of-processing effect is the finding that how well you remember something depends on how deeply you analyze it during encoding.
Lifestyle creep Lifestyle creep occurs when higher income leads to higher spending at the same rate, turning optional luxuries into perceived daily necessities.
Locus of control Locus of control measures whether you believe outcomes come from your own actions or outside forces like luck, fate, and other people.
Loss Aversion Loss aversion is a cognitive bias where losing something hurts more than gaining the exact same thing feels good.
Love Bombing Love bombing is the act of overwhelming someone with intense affection, flattery, and attention to influence them.
Martyr complex A martyr complex is a behavioral pattern where a person actively seeks out or holds onto suffering instead of solving it.
Memory Consolidation Memory consolidation is the brain process that stabilizes newly learned information so it can be stored as a long-term memory.
Mental accounting Mental accounting explains how people separate identical money into subjective buckets, changing how they spend and evaluate financial decisions.
Monty Hall Problem Switching doors in the Monty Hall problem raises your chance of winning from 1/3 to 2/3 because the host filters out a losing door.
Moravec's Paradox Moravec's paradox shows why computers excel at complex logic like chess but struggle with basic human skills like vision and walking.
Narcissism Narcissism is a self-centered personality style marked by an excessive preoccupation with oneself and one's own needs, often at the expense of others.
Narcissistic personality disorder Narcissistic personality disorder is a psychiatric condition defined by grandiosity, low empathy, and impaired relationships across 256 trait combinations.
Nostalgia Nostalgia is a bittersweet emotional longing for past events, people, or places that cannot be recovered.
Oedipus complex Sigmund Freud defined the Oedipus complex as childhood desire for one parent and rivalry with the other, shaping adult conscience and neurosis.
Operant Conditioning Operant conditioning is a learning process where voluntary actions change based on the rewards or punishments that follow them.
Overconfidence Bias Overconfidence bias is a mental blind spot where a person's certainty in their own judgment reliably exceeds its actual accuracy.
Oxytocin Oxytocin is a peptide hormone, a small chemical messenger made of amino acids, produced in the brain's hypothalamus.
Paradox of hedonism The paradox of hedonism is the observation that deliberately chasing pleasure often prevents you from experiencing it.
Parkinson's law Parkinson's law states that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
Perfectionism (psychology) Perfectionism is a personality trait defined by striving for flawlessness, critical self-evaluations, and tying self-worth to productivity.
Planning fallacy The planning fallacy causes people to underestimate the time, costs, and risks of their own future tasks while overestimating the benefits.
Pomodoro Technique The Pomodoro Technique is a time-management method that splits work into focused 25-minute intervals separated by mandatory short breaks.
Positive psychology Positive psychology is the scientific study of the conditions and processes that lead to human flourishing, positive relationships, and well-being.
Practice (learning method) Practice is the act of rehearsing a behavior repeatedly to help learn, maintain, or master a skill.
Problematic smartphone use Problematic smartphone use describes compulsive phone habits and distress without requiring a formal addiction diagnosis.
Procrastination Procrastination is an avoidance coping behavior where people needlessly delay tasks despite knowing the delay will cause negative consequences.
Prospect theory Prospect theory is an economic theory describing how real people make decisions involving risk and uncertainty.
Psychoanalysis Psychoanalysis is a talk therapy and theory of mind founded by Sigmund Freud to uncover unconscious drives, defense mechanisms, and resistance.
Psychological stress Psychological stress is a reaction to perceived demands.
Psychosexual development Sigmund Freud proposed that adult personality stems from how children resolve bodily conflicts across five distinct psychosexual stages.
Psychotherapy Psychotherapy uses psychological methods to improve mental health.
Reciprocity (social psychology) Reciprocity is the learned social norm of returning favors and harms.
Reinforcement Reinforcement is any consequence that increases the future rate of a behavior.
REM Sleep REM sleep is a distinct phase of sleep where the brain acts nearly awake while the body's skeletal muscles are paralyzed.
Reminiscence bump Adults over forty recall a disproportionate number of autobiographical memories from adolescence and early adulthood.
Scarcity (social psychology) Scarcity causes people to place higher value on limited items, driving panic buying, impulse purchases, and biased decisions.
Self-Control Self-control is the ability to regulate your thoughts, emotions, and behavior when facing immediate temptations and impulses.
Self-efficacy Self-efficacy is an individual's belief in their ability to act in the ways necessary to achieve a specific goal.
Self-serving bias Why we attribute our successes to personal skill and blame our failures on outside factors to protect our self-esteem.
Serotonin Serotonin is a chemical messenger that nerve cells use to communicate with each other and with the rest of the body.
Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud founded psychoanalysis, explaining how unconscious desires, dreams, and slips of the tongue shape human behavior.
Sleep debt Sleep debt is the cumulative effect of not getting enough sleep over days or weeks.
Slot machine Slot machines decide payouts the instant you press the button using a random number generator.
Slow-Wave Sleep Slow-wave sleep is the deepest stage of non-REM sleep, defined by large delta waves that help the brain consolidate declarative memories.
Social engineering (security) Social engineering tricks people into handing over private data or access by exploiting human psychology rather than software bugs.
Social proof Social proof occurs when people copy others to determine correct behavior during uncertain situations, often leading to genuine belief.
Spaced repetition Spaced repetition is a learning method where you review information at increasing intervals of time instead of all at once.
Spotlight effect The spotlight effect causes people to overestimate how much others notice their appearance, mistakes, and nervous feelings.
Stimulus control Stimulus control occurs when a behavior happens in the presence of a specific cue and does not happen in its absence.
Strange situation How Mary Ainsworth's 21-minute laboratory test uses separations and reunions to measure the attachment relationship between babies and caregivers.
Stress Hormone A stress hormone is a chemical signal released by endocrine glands to adjust your body during times of threat.
Stress Management Stress management uses psychological techniques and physical interventions to reduce chronic stress and prevent health decline.
Subjective well-being Subjective well-being measures personal evaluations of life through emotional moods, life satisfaction, and meaning rather than external wealth.
Survivorship Bias Survivorship bias occurs when we evaluate only surviving entities and overlook failures, leading to false conclusions and inflated success rates.
Testing effect Testing yourself on material builds stronger long-term memory than rereading it, even without receiving feedback on what you got wrong.
Time Management Time management is the practice of consciously planning and controlling how much time you spend on specific activities.
Transference Transference happens when a person unconsciously redirects feelings, expectations, or desires from past relationships onto someone in the present.
Traumatic bonding Traumatic bonding is a psychological attachment that an abused person develops toward their abuser, not toward other victims.
Working Memory Working memory is the cognitive system that holds and manipulates information temporarily so you can reason and make decisions.
Work–life balance Work–life balance is the equilibrium between a person's job and their personal life, including family, leisure, and health.