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!
#61
"Cute aggression. I always thought the link between cuteness and violent urges was ironic. Every time you see something extremely cute something in your brain says, 'I have to squeeze its little head off.'"
Report
10points
#62
"Cognitive dissonance. If our actions don’t match up with our opinions, beliefs, wishes, etc., something will give and either our actions will change or our mindset will.
Doesn’t sound very interesting until you use this to 'hack' your life in a sense.
Ever heard of the law of attraction? It’s kind of like this. The law of attraction claims that if you want something, just pretend like you already have it. Envision that you have it and you live it. Want to lose weight? Envision you at your ideal weight every night.
Sounds like complete BS and in a sense it is, BUT it applies to cognitive dissonance and if you play your cards right it works.
Me, I was a very shy person. I wanted to become talkative and get friends and guys. So, I would tell myself, 'I’m not shy! People love me! I have tons of friends!' My beliefs did not match up with my actions (I wouldn’t talk to people) but EVENTUALLY, something gave and I started to act in accordance with my beliefs.
Either you will give up on pretending or you will become how you believe yourself to be! Something to think about. The law of attraction isn’t a proven thing but cognitive dissonance is."
Report
10points
#63
"Mass hysteria.
The fact that our brains can cause us to have symptoms of something serious just because of rumors and fear is pretty crazy."
Report
10points
#64
"Deindividuation. It's the loss of self-awareness in groups often attributed to mobs and how seemingly 'normal' people can participate in illegal behavior such as riots and lynching. You have a decreased self-evaluation of your actions and it's as if the group shares the responsibility and not you for your actions."
Report
10points
#65
"Australian Aborigines have no words for left, right, etc. Instead, they use north, east, south, and west. As a result, they almost always know what direction they are facing, even inside buildings with no exterior view."
Report
10points
#66
"For me, it is the unconscious mind and the fact that it accounts for the majority of our cognitive activity. I think it's interesting how we can simultaneously both know and not know things. It is also interesting (and perhaps even frightening) that we are not running the show to the extent that we think we are, at least not consciously."
Report
9points
#67
"Cotard delusion, a.k.a walking corpse syndrome, where the sufferer genuinely believes that they are dead, don’t exist, or have no internal organs. absolutely crazy. I can’t imagine what it feels like walking around feeling actually, genuinely dead."
ameliaaa59 replied: "I experienced this for a period of time after my dad passed away when I was younger. It was terrifying and traumatic. I felt as if I was hollow inside - with no organs or vessels, just empty muscle - and was a ghost that everyone else could see. Thankfully, those delusions don’t plague my life anymore, but it was so dark and awful."
Report
9points
#68
"I've always been a big fan of the Selective attention test. It's a fairly simple experiment designed to test how well you pay attention to the world around you. If you're not familiar with it, give it a try, it's a very short video."
Report
9points
#69
"Pibloktoq or Arctic hysteria which exists mostly among Inuit living in the Arctic region. Sufferers often become agitated, shouting and tearing off their clothes before running naked in freezing temperatures. This continues for hours until they collapse and sleep. They have recovered by the time they wake up and may not remember the event.
Interestingly this illness also affects Sled dogs and non-Inuit people."
Report
9points
#70
"Psychosomatic symptoms! How you can have all these physical complaints or symptoms, but physiologically there’s nothing causing it. How things can literally be all in your head! Super interesting!"
Report
9points
#71
"Taijin kyofusho is fascinating since it is primarily a Japanese culture-specific syndrome.
It's very similar to social anxiety, but instead of being afraid of embarrassing themselves or other people judging them, they are afraid of offending/embarrassing others with their appearance and bodily functions. It's more prevalent in men, but its lifetime prevalence is 3-13% and changes in severity throughout the lifetime."
Report
9points
#72
"Denial. The many answers to evade the truth are very creative."
CharlisonX replied:
"Denial is rooted in the perception of threat, if you manage to convey the same words in a way that doesn't make it as a threat, you'll shave off most of it."
"Denial is rooted in the perception of threat, if you manage to convey the same words in a way that doesn't make it as a threat, you'll shave off most of it."
Report
8points
#73
"Caprgras syndrome- when a person believes that a loved one has been replaced by an imposter. This often occurs when the emotional region of the brain is severed, so the person can physically recognize the individual, but they don’t have an emotional response associated with it. This causes them to believe that the person is an imposter, posing as the original loved one."
Report
8points
#74
"Deaf children in Africa using made-up sign language had not developed signs for describing positioning (under, over, to the right of, etc.). When tested, they could not find a hidden object, even when they watched it be hidden. They couldn't tell themselves in their own minds where to look for it, and so they couldn't find it."
Report
8points
#75
"When Japanese tourists go to Paris, see how not romantic it is, and have crippling panic attacks."
Sprayface replied: "I'm surprised to learn the Paris syndrome is apparently a real thing. Who would have thought..."
Report
7points
#76
"Conformity. If you stick a person in a room full of people in on the experiment, and ask them to select the longest line out of three lines, they’ll give the obviously wrong answer if everyone else does too."
Report
7points
#77
"The Cocktail party effect is a form of selective attention and is the ability to focus attention on one auditory stimulus while effectively shutting out others in an otherwise noisy environment. However, that individual can still pick up important pieces of information from the attenuated conversations, like their own name!"
Report
7points
