What The Eyes Reveal: 10 Messages My Pupils are Sending You. The dilation and constriction of the pupils reveals how hard we’re thinking, how excited or disgusted we are and more… Our pupils, the black holes which let light into the eyes, don’t just help us see, they also signal what’s going on in our minds. Here are 10 pieces of psychological research which show how changes in pupil size reveal many aspects of thought. 1.
I’m thinking hard Look into my eyes and ask me to name the cigar-smoking founder of psychoanalysis and you won’t see much change in my pupil size. The name Sigmund Freud comes easily to my lips. But ask me to explain the laws of cricket and watch my pupils expand. That’s because research has shown that the harder your brain works, the more your pupils dilate. 2. Keep watching my eyes closely and you’ll spot the point when explaining the laws of cricket gets too much. Poock (1973) reported that when participants’ minds were loaded to 125% of their capacity, their pupils constricted.
It’ll be trying to explain a googly that will do it. Cognitive Dissonance. Understanding this experiment sheds a brilliant light on the dark world of our inner motivations. The ground-breaking social psychological experiment of Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) provides a central insight into the stories we tell ourselves about why we think and behave the way we do. The experiment is filled with ingenious deception so the best way to understand it is to imagine you are taking part. So sit back, relax and travel back. The time is 1959 and you are an undergraduate student at Stanford University… As part of your course you agree to take part in an experiment on ‘measures of performance’.
Little do you know, the experiment will actually become a classic in social psychology. The set-up Once in the lab you are told the experiment is about how your expectations affect the actual experience of a task. Perhaps you wonder why you’re being told all this, but nevertheless it makes it seem a bit more exciting now that you know some of the mechanics behind the experiment. Why Thought Suppression is Counter-Productive. How pushing a thought out of consciousness can bring it back with a vengeance. It sometimes feels like our minds are not on the same team as us.
I want to go to sleep, but it wants to keep me awake rerunning events from my childhood. I want to forget the lyrics from that stupid 80s pop song but it wants to repeat them over and over again ad nauseam. This internal battle can be anything from the attempt to suppress an occasional minor irritation (did I turn off the cooker?) To a near-constant obstacle to everyday life. Perpetual thoughts of food drive people to obesity, persistent negative thoughts cue depression and traumatic events push back into consciousness to be relived over and over again.
The classic response to this mental wrangling — whether relatively trivial or deadly serious — is to try and forget about it, push it to the back of our minds or some other variation on the theme. Thought rebound Suppressing emotions Back with a vengeance Substance cravings. Our disobedient minds. How Meditation Improves Attention. The science of meditation and attention, including a beginner’s guide to meditation. William James wrote that controlling attention is at “the very root of judgement, character and will”. He also noted that controlling attention is much easier said than done. This is unfortunate because almost every impressive human achievement is, at heart, a feat of attention. Art, science, technology — you name it — someone, somewhere had to concentrate, and concentrate hard. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to be able to concentrate without effort? Psychologists are fascinated by the sometimes fantastical claims made for meditation, particularly in its promise of improving attention.
Does meditation improve attention? The problem with attention is that it naturally likes to jump around from one thing to another: attention is antsy, it won’t settle — this is not in itself a bad thing, just the way it is. Quicker results Dr. This research on meditation’s effect on attention is just the tip of the iceberg. The Surprising Motivational Power of Self-Compassion.
We all make mistakes, but should you beat yourself up or show a little mercy? We all have a kind of virtual policeman living inside us. Amongst other things he’s the guy that helps us work towards our goals, whether personal or professional. When things go wrong and we stray off the straight and narrow, he reminds us what we were supposed to be doing. But what kind of policeman is he? People sometimes think of the latter, more relaxed internal policeman, as being weak and ineffectual. So, what stance should we adopt towards ourselves? Let’s say someone is trying to deal with a recent period of low self-confidence. Self-esteem boost: think about positive aspects of the self to boost confidence.Positive distraction: think back to nice memories to create a distraction from the problem.Self-compassion: think about the self with kindness and compassion, seeing the period of low self-confidence in context, without evaluating or judging it. Image credit: Loving Earth. How To Be a Great Leader (in under 300 words)
The six psychological factors that make a really great leader. Want to lead others? Well, much has been said and written about what makes a great leader, so here are the crib notes. These are the factors that psychologists consistently find make a good leader (Hogan & Kaiser, 2005): Decisiveness: good leaders make frequent decisions and stick with them. When there is uncertainty (and when isn’t there?) Although being a great leader (like Aung San Suu Kyi, above) isn’t necessarily the same as being a great manager, there’s much common ground.
These four factors were confirmed in a study of Fortune 1000 companies that had been turned around by their CEOs (Collins, 2001). Modesty: the most effective leaders weren’t grand-standing show-offs; they were incredibly modest and humble.Persistent: the leaders who transformed their organisations the most never gave up. These may all sound like pretty straightforward characteristics, but apparently few have what it takes. Image credit: Surian Soosay.