Neuroticism is often depicted as an extremely undesirable personality trait, having been associated with all sorts of problems. This post shines a brighter light on being a neurotic, with benefits including enhanced evolutionary fitness, more positive health behaviors, and greater academic as well as vocational success.
The huge stream of immigrants comes with many challenges. These challenges often have an underlying psychological aspect. Psychological theories can therefore help to understand the impact of immigration on both immigrants and locals. They can also be used to develop interventions that could improve the understanding between immigrants and locals.
Homeopathy is a domain of alternative medicine that has no scientific plausibility. However, many people are convinced of its effectiveness because they are fooled by the unconscious psychological mechanisms homeopaths utilize for treatment. One of these mechanisms is the patients’ positive reaction to the empathy homeopaths show during consultations.
Last month, Marieke Timmerman gave her Inaugural Lecture at the University’s Academy building, laying out her academic vision and presenting an overview of her research work. We asked her to write an article inspired by her lecture, so we can share it with Mindwise readers. – ed. Psychology seems to be in crisis. Alarming messages […]
Compulsory retirement prevented me from continuing my empirical research. At the same time, it provided me with the opportunity to study other issues that over the years aroused my curiosity, such as the relation between age and scientific productivity, the association between gun availability and homicide, and the validity of student evaluations in teaching. In this blog I briefly discuss a few of my post-retirement pursuits.
In a recent literature review my co-authors and I compared the symptoms and causes of schizophrenia spectrum disorders and dissociative disorders. The results show the limitations of categorical models of psychopathology (e.g. DSM-5) compared to models that view symptoms as extremes of normal behavior, and models emphasizing that symptoms can cause other symptoms.