Hybristophilia is a term that has emerged to describe a peculiar and often misunderstood psychological phenomenon: sexual or romantic attraction to dangerous people or people with a criminal history. This type of attraction a...
Regret can be an incredibly painful emotion. While rooted in feelings of contrition, disappointment, guilt, or remorse for things that have happened in the past, such feelings can have a powerful influence over your life in t...
Living in a foreign country and adjusting to a new culture can be a very rewarding experience. But, it can also be a difficult one if you do not understand the values and assumptions of the society. Values are ideas about wha...
If a family member suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder or displays significant narcissistic tendencies, the holidays can mean great chaos and calamity. During the season, there are more opportunities for narcissist...
Persistent depressive disorder, known as dysthymia or low-grade depression, is less severe than major depression but more chronic. It occurs twice as often in women as in men. Persistent depressive disorder (PDD) is a serious...
Though our need to connect is innate, many of us frequently feel alone. Loneliness is the state of distress or discomfort that results when one perceives a gap between one’s desires for social connection and actual experience...
Geographical psychology examines links between location and psychological phenomena, such as how and why personality traits, life satisfaction, and social behavior differ from place to place—or cluster in certain areas. These...
You just moved to a new city. All your friends are getting married or having kids. You retired. You got divorced. You've outgrown your childhood friends. You’ve been clinging to your spouse as your only friend and it’s making...
The question of the meaning of life is perhaps one that we would rather not ask, for fear of the answer or lack thereof. Still today, many people believe that we, humankind, are the creation of a supernatural entity called Go...
With all the buzz around childhood obesity, it's easy to become desensitized to the statistics. But the shocking figures can't be ignored: Since 1980, the prevalence of obesity among kids and adolescents in the United States ...
Promiscuity is formally defined, according to Webster, as including not only frequent but indiscriminate sexual behavior. Preference for frequent sexual contacts is not necessarily the same as being sexually indiscriminating....
Through most of Western civilization, marriage has been more a matter of money, power and survival than of delicate sentiments. In medieval Europe, everyone from the lord of the manor to the village locals had a say in decidi...
Mania can range from mild (known as hypomania) to severe; at its most extreme, mania can trigger delusions, violence, and an increased risk of suicide. Depending on the cause, a manic episode can last anywhere from several da...
Virtually anyone who has survived sexual assault or experienced sexual harassment knows how painful victim-blaming can be. Survivors are often asked what they were wearing, what they did to “encourage” the perpetrator, or eve...
Body language is a silent orchestra, as people constantly give clues to what they’re thinking and feeling. Non-verbal messages including body movements, facial expressions, vocal tone and volume, and other signals are collect...
If nothing else, the conflict in the Middle East has made it clear that identity politics isn’t going away. In fact, many individuals who previously criticized identity politics now embrace their personal identities more stro...
While American children had once commonly enjoyed the freedom to run around outside with minimal adult interference, they began to spend more time indoors where their parents could watch them. When they did go outside, they w...
Why do we hold grudges when they are in fact quite painful to maintain, and often seem to work against what we really want? Why do we keep wounds open and active, living in past experiences of pain which prevent new experienc...
Media especially through portrayals of characters, narratives and scenarios can serve as powerful models for learning behavior. We have seen this in the famous Bobo doll experiment by Albert Bandura. Following a series of chi...
It’s always difficult to hear your children yelling or sobbing that they don’t want to go to school. You may be even more sensitive to their reluctance and anxiety because of what an unpredictable place school has felt like f...
What makes friendship in marriage a potential benefit is that you will need to have someone you can talk to and fight alongside when life gets tough. And the ideal combination is a spouse with whom you share your life plans a...
What, exactly, is apathy? In a sense, it’s something like falling in love. You can describe it all you want, but until you’ve experienced it, you can only guess what it feels like. Paradoxically, what makes the feeling of apa...
When you take things personally, you allow many issues to consume your well-being. This way of thinking exhausts your energy with little good and a lot of stress and anxiety. The amount of worry, anger, and suffering you expe...
People who have borderline personality disorder tend to have more tumultuous, chaotic romantic relationships. Such relationships are often marked by stress, conflict, and dysfunction. Some of the ways that BPD can manifest in...