It's easier to deal with something you can actually see. An enemy on the battlefield. A broken bone. A flat tire. But when the 'enemy' is invisible, for example, emotional and psychological trauma contributing to many psychological effects and outcomes such as depression and anxiety, dealing with it becomes even more complicated. How do you deal with, or even more importantly, understand, something you can't see? This might be one of the reasons why the human psyche is one of the most difficult subjects to study.
And although the science of psychology is quite good at differentiating psychological effects from psychological phenomena, it might be more challenging for an ordinary human to distinguish between the two. And to be fair, the margin is somewhat blurred. We often refer to effects as the outcomes of how we act and think caused by things such as sleep deprivation, substance abuse, childhood emotional neglect, etc. But psychological effects such as the 'placebo' or 'bystander' effect can also be referred to as examples of psychological phenomena. And these interesting phenomena continue to fascinate both experts in the field and the ordinary public. Some time ago, a member of the AskReddit community asked, "What do you think is the most interesting psychology phenomenon?" And judging by the vast number of comments, many individuals find it fascinating how the human brain works.
We have gone through the whole thread and compiled some of the most interesting responses that many seemed to agree with or which spiraled into separate and even more extensive discussions. Scroll further below and give those a read. Do you agree with the thoughts of the Redditors? What psychological phenomenon do you find the most fascinating? Or most difficult to grasp? Share your thoughts in the comments!
#1
"Insomnia. As a chronic insomniac myself I’m genuinely puzzled by my brains inability or even refusal to sleep despite being physically exhausted and/or not having slept enough for days on end. Currently averaging 4 hours for last 3 weeks straight."
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36points
#2
"We tend to hate people that have the same flaws and make the same mistakes as we do."
argon_13 comments: "When I drive I hate cyclists. When I'm on my bike I hate drivers."
cinnapear replied: "I hate both all the time."
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32points
#3
"Imaginary audience.
When walking by someone and they laugh you'd think they're are laughing at you, it seems as if every action done by you is seen by an audience. Mostly affects very anxious people."
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31points
#4
"The irrationality of humans when it comes to some basic decision making. For example:
Imagine you wanted to buy a nice pair of jeans so you go to the store and find a pair you really like. The price is $60. Before you buy it you check your phone and find out a store 15 minutes away has the same exact pair for $20. Would you make the drive and go get the cheaper pair? Most people say yes, they would.
Now imagine that you've saved up a bunch of cash and are gonna go to the store for a nice refrigerator. You find the one you like for $2,440. Before you buy it you find the same exact one 15 minutes away for $2,400. Assuming you couldn't price match, would you make the drive out for the cheaper one? Most people surveyed say no, they would not, despite being the same amount of savings.
Most people, when asked why they would drive out for one and not the other, cite the relative difference in price but this is irrational behavior. Rational behavior would dictate that it shouldn't make a difference. Regardless of the relative savings, $40 extra in your pocket is $40 extra in your pocket and that's all that should matter to a rational being."
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30points
#5
"False memories. How you can implant false memories in someone over time. And they believe they are real and their reactions are based on their own reality."
tobimay replied: "This is actually a real problem when trying to solve bad traffic accidents. When people are in shock, even the questions by the police can make them think that something happened."
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28points
#6
"A really fun one for me right now - the brain's ability to worry itself to the point of manifesting bulls*it physical symptoms all over the rest of the body. I'm worried about a thing, so now I'm just nauseous all week, my head hurts, I'm tired, and I'm pretty sure I'm getting an ulcer.
Thanks, brain."
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27points
#7
"The amount that the words we use (and think in) change how we act. People who speak Spanish are less likely to blame someone for dropping something because the language is "the thing was dropped" rather than "you dropped the thing."
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26points
#8
"The doorway effect. We've all experienced it. You need something in a different room, yet once you get there you can't remember what it was that you needed. This is believed to be caused by passing through a doorway, which tricks our mind into thinking we have entered a new environment, and thus you subconsciously discard whatever chain of thought you had in your previous environment. It's probably useful in nature to help adapt to a sudden change in your surroundings, but it's a bitch when you have to walk back into the other room to remember that you went in the walk-in cooler to grab tomatoes."
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26points
#9
"How we judge people on their actions, but how we judge ourselves on our intentions."
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25points
#10
"The Gambler's fallacy - specifically, how the same series of events can lead to two different conclusions. Assume you have a perfectly fair coin; you toss it five times and get five heads. You then ask two people what they think the sixth toss will be.
Person A thinks that heads are obviously on a roll, so he bets on heads.
Person B thinks that heads have happened too many times, which means that tails have to come up, so he bets on tails.
They're both wrong: the odds of the sixth throw remain the same, regardless of what happened in the past.
(Note that this only works if the coin is fair!)"
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23points
#11
"The placebo effect. The idea that belief in something can actually have a positive impact on the body just seems so crazy to me. Also helped me realize inversely why stress and anxiety can take such a toll on you."
Why_So_Slow replied:
"Funny enough, placebo also works, when you know it's placebo... somehow, deep down, there is something in you that wants to believe despite all reasonable arguments against it.
"Funny enough, placebo also works, when you know it's placebo... somehow, deep down, there is something in you that wants to believe despite all reasonable arguments against it.
Also, nocebo is a thing... when you expect something to harm you, it will. It makes a lot of treatments complicated - on one hand, you want the patient aware of the side effects, on the other, you don't want them to "generate" them by the nocebo effect."
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20points
#12
"When you stare at a word in your language for a long-ish length of time and you start to think that it’s spelled incorrectly or it isn’t a word."
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20points
#13
"I'm amazed at the number of people who freeze in a disastrous situation like a sinking ship. People who survive tragedies like that always report that there's not nearly the amount of panic and confusion that you'd expect. A lot of people freeze in place and simply can't move, even as the water is rising around them. Families have been split up in situations like this, where two of them can move, but the other three can't."
ColdNotion comments:
"Yep, the freeze reaction doesn’t get the attention it deserves, and it’s something that’s actually really important for us to understand. Freezing is part of the same process that triggers the fight/flight response and usually occurs when people can’t do anything to actively exit or combat what’s causing them stress. Freezing is a really old response evolutionally speaking, and is something of a last-ditch way the body tries to save itself. As a result, people tend to go into fight/flight first, and then eventually freeze if they still can’t control the stress they’re experiencing."
"Yep, the freeze reaction doesn’t get the attention it deserves, and it’s something that’s actually really important for us to understand. Freezing is part of the same process that triggers the fight/flight response and usually occurs when people can’t do anything to actively exit or combat what’s causing them stress. Freezing is a really old response evolutionally speaking, and is something of a last-ditch way the body tries to save itself. As a result, people tend to go into fight/flight first, and then eventually freeze if they still can’t control the stress they’re experiencing."
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19points
#14
"The Mandela effect. Somehow it's possible for a very large amount of people to have a shared memory of a certain thing while everyone else has a completely different, but still shared one. The biggest example is the whole Berenstain/Berenstein Bears situation."
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19points
#15
"Déjà vu. To have such a strong feeling that an instance has happened before is crazy... like you experienced it in the past, or dreamed of it."
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18points
#16
"I find the 'the call of the void" an interesting phenomenon. It's that feeling you get when you stand on a high place and subconsciously think, 'I could totally jump off right now' but you don't really want to and you don't actually jump. I experienced this multiple times on my most recent trip to Europe."
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18points
#17
"Dunning-Kruger effect. It's when someone doesn't know enough about a subject and thinks they know much more than they actually do."
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18points
#18
"Presque vu. When something is on the tip of your tongue but you can’t remember it."
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17points
#19
"The bystander effect. Everyone thinks they would help if something happens, but the effect says that the more people there are, the less someone is going to help."
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17points
#20
"Folie à deux - that two people can have the same shared psychosis or better yet HALLUCINATIONS is just insane. The transference there... as a psych major this one gets me."
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17points