Affinity bias—our tendency to favor those who remind us of ourselves—can subtly shape hiring, friendships, and even everyday decisions. Here’s why recognizing it is the first step to building fairer, more inclusive environments.
From memory to problem-solving, cognitive skills drive how we learn and adapt. Here’s a look at these essential skills and how they shape everyday life.
Discover real-life examples of personal fables and how they influence our perceptions of uniqueness and experiences.
Got rhythm? Here’s some of the strengths of a musical mind.
Retrieval failure is one explanation for forgetting.
Learn the difference between primary and secondary emotions, and how they shape your emotional responses.
Deep thinkers are considered and creative. Learn more about how to recognize the signs—and boost your own deep thinking skills in the process.
Fluid intelligence is your ability to reason quickly and solve problems. Learn why it’s so important—and at what age it tends to peak.
Looking for information that confirms what you already believe? That’s the confirmation bias at work. Here’s why it happens and how it affects how we think.
Crystallized intelligence is all about what you’ve learned. Here’s why the wisdom you’ve picked up along the way is so important.
The motivational cycle refers to the process where a need motivates a person to take action. This chronological cycle has four stages: need, drive, incentive, and reward. The motivational cycle is a framework that helps us understand how people become motivated and maintain that motivation to achieve their goals. Motivation drives our actions and decisions,…
Functional fixedness is when people can only think of traditional ways of using objects. It is a type of cognitive bias that prevents people from thinking outside of the box and developing creative solutions. When you have a particular tool, you might look at it in terms of how it is traditionally used. A screwdriver,…
The recency effect shows how our memory is influenced by the most recent information. Discover how this cognitive bias shapes our perceptions and decision-making.
Working memory is a form of memory that temporarily holds information that a person needs to perform immediate mental tasks. It involves actively processing and manipulating information to perform activities like comprehending information, solving problems, and making decisions. Working memory is an executive function that plays an important role in many cognitive processes. It allows…
Choice blindness is a psychological phenomenon in which people fail to notice a mismatch between their intended choice and the choice presented to them. In other words, it is a surprising tendency to be unaware that our choices and preferences have been changed or manipulated after we’ve already made a choice. This tendency suggests that…
Self-determination theory (SDT) is a framework for understanding human motivation that focuses on the importance of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Self-determination refers to individuals’ ability to control their actions and make choices aligned with their goals, needs, and values. Intrinsic motivation is another important component of self-determination theory. It is a type of motivation that…
When rewards backfire: how external incentives can drain natural motivation and alter our relationship with things we once loved doing.
The primacy effect is a cognitive phenomenon in which people tend to remember and give more importance to the initial information presented in a series of items, whether it be a list of words, a sequence of events, or other forms of communication. This effect suggests that information presented at the beginning of a series…
Short-term memory (STM) is a type of memory that can hold a small amount of information for a limited period of time. The duration and capacity of short-term memory is quite limited, holding between five to nine pieces of information for around 20 to 30 seconds. You’ve probably experienced these limitations yourself many times. Consider…
The self-serving bias involves taking credit for our success but blaming others for our failures. It’s why we might boast about our talents and hard work when things go our way but focus on external, situational factors when we don’t live up to expectations. For example, it’s why you might attribute your good score on…
