If you announce your goals to others, you are less likely to make them happen because you lose

motivation, studies confirmed.

Your mind "rewrites" monotonous speech of boring people to make it sound more interesting.

There are more than 400 distinct phobias well recognized by psychologists.

Phobias may be memories passed down through generations in DNA, according to a new
research.

Phobophobia is the fear of having a phobia.

There's a rare mental disorder where people imagine that they are decomposing, dead or non-
existent.

Researchers are debating on adding Internet addiction to the list of mental disorders.

1 in 5 people in France
has experienced depression
making it the most depressed
country in the world.

There is a gene
that can cause you
to be negative
most of the time.

The Truman Syndrome is a psychological disorder in which patients believe they're living in a
reality TV show.

The brain treats rejection like physical pain, according to scientists.

"Erotomania" is a psychological disorder in which the affected people believe a famous person
is in love with them.

68% of the people suffer from Phantom Vibration Syndrome, the feeling that one's phone is
vibrating when it's not.

Paris Syndrome is a psychological disorder, mainly suffered by Japanese people, caused after
realizing Paris isn't what they expected.
The Jerusalem syndrome is a group of psychological phenomena triggered by a visit to
Jerusalem, Israel.

No one born blind has ever developed schizophrenia.

About 1 million Japanese men are estimated to be locking themselves in their bedrooms for
years, creating social and health problems, a condition called "Hikikomori.

In addition to aches, fever and pains, Tylenol (acetaminophen) also alleviates psychological pain,
such as social rejection.

Crying makes you feel better, reduce stress, and may help to keep the body healthy.

There are few things in existence more fascinating than the human mind. In fact, apart from the
depths of space, it is probably one of the least understood objects in the universe. That is not to
say, however, that we haven’t learned a lot about it. We know enough that psychologists can
even make predictions about your behavior based on certain “rules” that more or less hold
true. So, although you may be one of the those counter cultural break-the-mold types we are
still willing to bet that the following 25 things psychology tells you about yourself would make
for a pretty good biography.

25

You read faster with longer lines but prefer shorter

Although you prefer reading text that is separated into relatively narrow columns, you read much
faster if the text takes up the width of the page. Interestingly enough, however, you believe that
you are actually able to read through the column layout faster but this is only because you prefer
it visually.

24

7 plus or minus 2

You may have heard about the 7 plus or minus two rule. Psychology tells us that you can only
store between 5 and 9 chunks of information in your short term memory at a time. A chunk,
however, can consists of several pieces of related data. Consider your phone number. It has a
country code, area code, and then one or two more sets of numbers. Although this can be over 14
numbers long, it is usually grouped into several “chunks” and therefore falls well into our short
memory range.

23

You imagine things from above and tilted

If you ask someone to draw a glass, for the most part they will draw it from the angle
demonstrated to the left. But what is to stop them from simply drawing a circle? This would be a
valid overhead view. The reason is that our brains, when left to their own devices, imagine
objects in this format.

22

Most of your decisions are subconscious

Although you like to think that all of your decisions are carefully controlled and thought out,
research tells us that most of our everyday decisions are actually subconscious. There is a reason
for this though. Every second our brains are bombarded with over 11 millions individual pieces
of data and because there is no way we can consciously sift through all of it our subconscious
mind, following certain “rules of thumb”, helps us out.

21

You reconstruct your memories

Because we experience our memories as mini “movies” that play in our heads we tend think that
our memories are stored away as complete little files much the same as a video on your
computer’s hard drive. This, however, is not the case. Every time you think back to your third
grade classroom that memory is reconstructed by your mind. This leads to the obvious
conclusion that no two recollections are ever the same. In fact, our memories change over time
and can influence one another.

20

You can’t multitask

We know, you are a professional multi-tasker. Unfortunately, if you really believe that, you are
also overly self confident, because the truth of the matter is that humans cannot multi-task. At
least not in the sense of the term that we often use. While you can certainly walk around while
talking to your friend, your brain can only focus on one higher level function at a time, which
means you cannot be thinking about two things at once.

19

Red and blue is hard on your eyes

Although they are used in numerous national flags, the colors red and blue are actually very hard
on your eyes whenever they are directly adjacent. This is due to an effect known as
Chromostereopsis, which causes certain colors to “pop out” and others to recede. While it is
strongest in red and blue it affects other combinations as well, notably red and green.

18

You want more choices than you can process

In a study done outside of a supermarket not too long ago researchers set up a tasting table with 6
varieties of jam. They then alternated this table with a much larger selection of 24 jams. What
they found was that although more people stopped for a taste at the 24 jam table, almost 6 times
as many made a purchase at the 6 jam table. This can be attributed to the fact that although we
think we want more, our brains can only handle so much input at a time (#24).

17

The ability to delay gratification starts young

Evidently the ability to delay fulfilling your desire for immediate gratification as a kid leads to
more success in school, better grades, and a greater ability to deal with stress and frustration.
Fortunately for those of you how lack in this regard, researchers are developing methods to teach
people ways of distracting themselves while they wait.

16

Your mind wanders 30% of the time

Are you a day dreamer? According to scientists we all are, at least 30% of the time. Some of us
though, wander a bit more than others. That’s not always a bad thing though, as researchers have
pointed out that people with a high predisposition to mind wandering are generally more creative
and better at solving problems.

15

Others are more easily influenced than you

At least that’s what you think. Known as the “third person effect” this psychological
phenomenon tells us that while we acknowledge the effect of advertising and other influences
upon our peers, we deny them upon ourselves. The effect is compounded when the source of
influence is something we don’t care about (an ad for a TV when you already bought one). In
reality though, many advertisments subconsciously affect your mood, attitude, and desires.

14

You see things differently than the way you perceive them

Aioccrdng to a rcseaerh sudty at Cmiadrbge Usvteriiny, it deosn’t mtetar in waht oredr the ltertes
in a wrod are. The olny iomnrtapt thnig is taht the fisrt and lsat leettr be in the rhgit pcale.The
rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wthiuot prelobm. Tihs is busacee the huamn
mnid deos not raed erevy letetr by iletsf, but the wrod as a wlohe. Your brain is constantly
processing the information it receives from your senses and the way you end up percieving this
information (as words) is usually vastly different from how you sense it (as scrambled letters).

13

Your brain is just as busy when you sleep

If you have read our article on 25 things you didn’t know about sleep, then you are probably
already a professional in this field, but for the rest of you – its true, your brain is just as active
during sleep as it is while you are awake. So what’s going on during sleep then if your brain isn’t
just shutting down? Well, scientists hypothesise that during the night your brain is consolidating
information and making new associations.

12
Groups are bad at making decisions

Labeled “group think” by psychologists this effect essentially tells us that more heads does not
necessarily mean more smarts as large groups of people tend to make decisions based on
hyperemotionalism.

11

Groups are also easily swayed

Not only are groups poor at making decisions, they are also easily swayed by dominant self
serving personalities who manage to play off of the group’s “spirit”. In spite of this, however,
studies still tell us that two heads are usually better than one.
10

Anticipation trumps experience

Unfortunately, our perception of a future event is usually far overblown and many times the
anticipation leading up to an event is more exciting than the event itself.

On average it takes you 66 days to form a habit

We all have them, some good and some bad, but just remember that next time New Years rolls
around if you can make it to day 67 with your resolutions then your probably in the clear.

More people means less desire to compete

In one interesting study scientists found that students scored higher on standardized tests when
there were less people in the room. Evidently when there are less people competing you are more
motivated to perform because there is a greater chance of coming out on top.

Repetition physically changes your brain

Every time you access or store information in your brain electrical impulses fire between
neurons, strengthening old connections and forging new ones. It’s the result of these new circuits
forming that causes your brain to physically change and grow.

You can sustain a high level of attention for approximately 10 minutes

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You might think that you are really good at paying attention in class, but the truth is that your
attention span maxes out at around 10 minutes, even if it’s something that interests you. After
that you typically revert to #16.

Your most vivid memories are often flawed

Known as flashbulb memories, whenever something traumatic happens in your life your brain
takes an emotionally charged “photo”. For example, anyone old enough to remember 9/11 or the
Challenger disaster could probably describe in vivid detail where they were and what they were
doing when the news broke. The only problem is that a lot of those vivid details would be
completely wrong and several studies have shown that the strong emotions associated with the
memory often skew your recollection.

You choose and vote for the first person on the list
Of course, we know you don’t always do this, but people generally favor the first item in a list
regardless of whether it’s a menu or a ballot. In fact, it has been shown that having your name
listed in the middle of a ballot decreases your chances of winning by 2.5%

You overestimate your reaction to future events

You are terrible at predicting the future. To be more precise, you are terrible at estimating your
reaction to events in the future, both positive and negative. It has been shown that people tend to
believe positive events like landing the perfect job or getting married will make them much
happier than they really will and the same goes for the negative events. The truth of the matter is,
however, that your happiness levels will generally stay about the same and they always revert to
a steady norm.

You have a friend limit

While you may be social media fiend who has 4,000 friends on Facebook, the hard truth is that
you don’t really have that many friends, at least not close friends. Psychologists and
anthropologists will tell you that the maximum number of close ties a human can have hovers
somewhere between 50 and 150.

You blame a person’s behavior on their personality…unless the person is you

Think back to the last time you got cut off in traffic. Did you say to yourself, “Man, what an
idiot”, or did you think,”Gee, she probably had a bad day.” Chances are that you went with the
former. In psychology circles this is known as the fundamental attribution error and it essentially
states that while we blame the behavior of others on their internal attributes, we blame our own
on the external (I had no choice, I had to cut her off to avoid a collision). Sadly, even if you are
aware of our predisposition towards making unfair judgements, it is notoriously hard to stop
doing, so you will most likely continue making this fundamental error.

12345

8 Very Interesting Psychological Facts. The Last One Really Surprised Me!

Colors

You’ve probably noticed

companies such as Pizza Hut,
KFC, Domino’s, McDonald’s
all use red color in the logos.
Red is a color associated with
excitement and youthfulness. It
also stimulates the area of the
brain which is responsible for
color.

Most of the brands have

researched to figure out which
color works best to stimulate
that particular emotion which
can drive the sales of their
products. The image below
shows examples.

Salesforce
Commend children on their work.

John Adkins

Studies show that you should not tell a child the he/she is “so smart” but instead commend their
work. According to Carol Dweck and her team at Columbia University telling kids they are
smart makes them want to maintain the image of appearing smart. She says, “we tell them that
this is the name of the game: Look smart, don’t risk making mistakes.” A better compliment
would be “you must have worked very hard for this.” Read more about the study here.
Eyes

reddit

We all know the scene: the departmental coffee room, with the price list for tea and coffee on the
wall and the “honesty box” where you pay for your drinks – or not, because no one is watching.

Researchers discovered that merely a picture of watching eyes nearly tripled the amount of
money put in the box.

Melissa Bateson and colleagues at Newcastle University, UK, put up new price lists each week
in their psychology department coffee room. Prices were unchanged, but each week there was a
photocopied picture at the top of the list of either flowers or the eyes of real faces. The faces
varied but the eyes always looked directly at the observer. In the weeks with eyes on the list,
staff paid 2.76 times as much for their drinks as in weeks with flowers. Read more about it here.
Video games

People who play video games often are much more likely to have lucid dreams than non-
gamers.** They were also better able to influence their dream worlds, as if controlling a video-
game character.

Here’s how to lucid dream.

In heated situations

If you’re in a really heated situation, try to avoid the word “you." The word “you” is accusatory
and is not going to help.
Adam Arroyo

If you want someone to say yes to something you’re asking for, here are some
options:

Nod as you ask. Our brains have what are called ‘mirror neurons’ which activate to make us
mimic other people’s actions. Sometimes they will also start to nod, which then makes them then
agree with you.
If you have a big favor to ask, start by asking smaller ones ahead of time. This is called the foot
in the door phenomenon. If you ask for small things, then work up to big things, people are more
likely to say yes than if you start off with a huge favor.
Inversely, if you are asking for a small favor but still know that they will probably say no, start
by asking them for a huge favor. Then when they say no, ask for the smaller one. They’re more
likely to say yes, especially if they feel a bit bad about turning down the first request.
imgur

If you find a co-worker to be completely wrong about something...

especially in a meeting or work situation, it’s better to make yourself the point of reference.

For example:

Bad: *Dwight, I think you have got it completely wrong!!!!!*

Better: *I don’t think I understood it correctly. From what I understand, it says this _____. Am I
wrong on this point?*
Bumper stickers

Richie W

People who have cars with bumper stickers are more likely to exhibit road rage.** You may
want to think twice before laying on the horn. A study at Colorado State University found drivers
who use decals, dashboard hulas, and vanity plates, are more likely to be road ragers than others.
Researchers say it comes down to the fact that people who mark their territory appear to be a bit
more aggressive.
#5 — You Make Most of Your Decisions Unconsciously

You are thinking of buying a TV. You do some research on what TV to buy and then you go
online to purchase one. What factors are involved in this decision making process?

It’s not what you think — I cover this topic in my book "Neuro Web Design: What makes them
click?" You like to think that when you make a decision you have carefully and logically
weighed all the relevant factors. In the case of the TV, you have considered the size of TV that
works best in your room, the brand that you have read is the most reliable, the competitive price,
whether you should get blu-ray, etc etc. But the research on decision-making, especially the
recent research, shows that although you want to think that your decision-making is a conscious,
deliberate process, it’s not. Most decisions are made through unconscious mental processing.

Unconscious decision-making includes factors such as:

What are most other people buying (social validation): “I see that a particular TV got high
ratings and reviews at the website”

What will make me stay consistent in my persona (commitment): “I’m the kind of person that
always has the latest thing, the newest technology.”

Do I have any obligations or social debts that I can pay off with this purchase (reciprocity): “My
brother has had me over to his house all year to watch the games, I think it’s time we had them
over to our place to watch”

and on and on.

Don’t Confuse Unconscious with Irrational or Bad. I take exception with Dan Ariely and his
book, "Predictably Irrational." Most of our mental processing is unconscious, and most of our
decision-making is unconscious, but that doesn’t mean it’s faulty, irrational or bad. We are faced
with an overwhelming amount of data (11,000,000 pieces of data come into the brain every
second!) and our conscious minds can’t process all of that. Our unconscious has evolved to
process most of the data and to make decisions for us according to guidelines and rules of thumb
that are in our best interest most of the time. This is the genesis of “trusting your gut”, and most
of the time it works!

So What To Do? — The next step is to think about what this means for people who design
things like websites, where you are providing information and/or engaging customers to make a
decision. This is, of course, the topic of my book, but let’s hear from you. If we know that people
are making decisions unconsciously, rather than consciously, what are some strategies we should
employ at the website to encourage them to engage?

#6 — You Reconstruct Your Memories

Try this task — Think back to a particular event that happened at least 5 years ago. Maybe it
was a wedding, or a family gathering, or a dinner you went to with friends, or a vacation. Pick
one for our purposes here, and remember the event. Remember the people, and where you were
and maybe you can remember the weather, or what you were wearing.

Memories as movies? — We tend to experience our memories of events like this as little movie
clips that play back in our minds. And because we experience them this way we have a tendency
to think that memories are stored in entirety and never change. But that’s not what happens.

Memories are reconstructed — Our memories are actually reconstructed every time we think
of them. They aren’t movie clips that are stored in the brain in a certain location like files on a
hard drive. They are nerve pathways that are firing anew each time we remember the event. This
makes for some interesting effects. For example, the memory can change.

Subsequent events can affect the memory – Other events that occur after the original event can
change the memory of the original event. At the original event, you and your cousin were close
friends. But later on you have an argument and a falling-out that lasts for years. Your memory of
the first event might include your cousin being aloof and cold, even if that is not true. The later
experience has changed your memory.

Mixing events — It is easy to start mixing up memories. So that things that happened at two
separate events become fused into one. Your cousin was pleasant at one event, and not pleasant
at the other, but over time your memories about which is which can become confused.

Filling in of gaps – You will also start to fill in your memory gaps with “made up” sequences of
events, but these will seem as real to you as the original event. You can’t remember who else
was at the family dinner, but Aunt Jolene is usually present at these events, and so over time your
memory of the event will include Aunt Jolene.

Eyewitness testimony – Elizabeth Loftus is one of the earliest psychology researchers to study
reconstructive memory. She was studying eyewitness testimonies, and was especially interested
in whether language can affect memory.

Bumped, hit, or smashed – In her research Loftus would show a video clip of an automobile
accident. Then she would ask a series of questions about the accident. She would change the way
she worded the questions, for example, sometimes she would phrase it as: “How fast would you
estimate the car was going when it hit the other vehicle”, or “How fast would you estimate the
car was going when it smashed the other vehicle.” And she would ask participants in the study if
they remembered seeing broken glass.

You can guess — When she used the word smashed the estimated speed was higher than when
she used the word hit. And more than twice as many people remembered seeing broken glass if
the word smashed was used rather than the word hit.

So what’s the impact? — Since memories are reconstructed, here are some things to keep in
mind:

 The words you use are important. They can actually affect people’s memories.

 You can’t rely on self-reports of past behavior. People will not remember accurately
what they or others did or said.

 Watch out for how and what you say if you are interviewing people, for example,
interviewing users for a usability or user experience study. You can influence their
responses with the words you use.

 Similarly, take what users say later, when they are remembering using an interface, with
a grain of salt. It’s being reconstructed.

And if you’d like to read some of Elizabeth Loftus’ seminal work in the area:
#7 — You Actually Can’t Multi-Task

Thomas Hawk

I know it’s popular to think that you are multi-tasking, but the research is clear that people
actually can’t multi-task, with one specific exception.

One thing at a time – For many years the psychology research has shown that people can only
attend to one task at a time. Let me be even more specific. The research shows that people can
attend to only one cognitive task at a time. You can only be thinking about one thing at a time.
You can only be conducting one mental activity at a time. So you can be talking or you can be
reading. You can be reading or you can be typing. You can be listening or you can be reading.
One thing at a time.

We fool ourselves – We are pretty good at switching back and forth quickly, so we THINK we
are actually multi-tasking, but in reality we are not.

The one exception — The only exception that the research has uncovered is that if you are
doing a physical task that you have done very very often and you are very good at, then you can
do that physical task while you are doing a mental task. So if you are an adult and you have
learned to walk then you can walk and talk at the same time.

Then again, maybe there isn’t an exception –  Even this doesn’t work very well, though. A
study being published in December shows that people talking on their cell phones while walking,
run into people more often and don’t notice what is around them. The researchers had someone
in a clown suit ride a unicycle. The people talking on a cell phone were much less likely to notice
or remember the clown.

But the millennial generation can multi-task, right? – A study at Stanford University
demonstrates well that multi-tasking doesn’t work, even with college students. Clifford Nass’s
study (published in August of 2009 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences),
found that when people are asked to deal with multiple streams of information they can’t pay
attention to them, can’t remember as well, and don’t switch as well as they would have thought.

#8 — Dopamine Makes You Addicted To Seeking Information

xorsyst

Do you ever feel like you are addicted to email or twitter or texting? Do you find it impossible to
ignore your email if you see that there are messages in your inbox? Have you ever gone to
Google to look up some information and 30 minutes later you realize that you’ve been reading,
and linking, and searching around for a long time, and you are now searching for something
totally different than before? These are all examples of your dopamine system at work.

Enter dopamine — Neuro scientists have been studying what they call the dopamine system for
a while. Dopamine was “discovered” in 1958 by Arvid Carlsson and Nils-Ake Hillarp at the
National Heart Institute of Sweden. Dopamine is created in various parts of the brain and is
critical in all sorts of brain functions, including thinking, moving, sleeping, mood, attention,
motivation, seeking, and reward.

The myth — You may have heard that dopamine controls the “pleasure” systems of the brain;
that dopamine makes you feel enjoyment, pleasure, and therefore motivates you to seek out
certain behaviors, such as food, sex, and drugs.

It’s all about seeking — The latest research, though is changing this view. Instead of dopamine
causing us to experience pleasure, the latest research shows that dopamine causes seeking
behavior. Dopamine causes us to want, desire, seek out, and search. It increases our general level
of arousal and our goal-directed behavior. (From an evolutionary stand-point this is critical. The
dopamine seeking system keeps us motivated to move through our world, learn, and survive).
It’s not just about physical needs such as food, or sex, but also about abstract concepts.
Dopamine makes us curious about ideas and fuels our searching for information. The latest
research shows that it is the opoid system (separate from dopamine) that makes us feel pleasure.

Wanting vs. liking — According to Kent Berridge, these two systems, the “wanting”
(dopamine) and the “liking” (opoid) are complementary. The wanting system propels us to action
and the liking system makes us feel satisfied and therefore pause our seeking. If our seeking isn’t
turned off at least for a little while, then we start to run in an endless loop. The latest research
shows that the dopamine system is stronger than the opoid system. We seek more than we are
satisfied (back to evolution… seeking is more likely to keep us alive than sitting around in a
satisfied stupor).

A dopamine-induced loop — With the internet, twitter, and texting we now have almost instant
gratification of our desire to seek. Want to talk to someone right away? Send a text and they
respond in a few seconds. Want to look up some information? Just type it into Google. Want to
see what your friends are up to? Go to Twitter or Facebook. We get into a dopamine induced
loop… dopamine starts us seeking, then we get rewarded for the seeking which makes us seek
more. It becomes harder and harder to stop looking at email, stop texting, stop checking our cell
phones to see if we have a message or a new text.

Anticipation is better than getting — Brain scan research shows that our brains show more
stimulation and activity when we ANTICIPATE a reward than when we get one. Research on
rats shows that if you destroy dopamine neurons, rats can walk, chew, and swallow, but will
starve to death even when food is right next to them. They have lost the desire to go get the food.

More, more, more — Although wanting and liking are related, research also shows that the
dopamine system doesn’t have satiety built in. It is possible for the dopamine system to keep
saying “more more more”,  seeking even when we have found the information. During that
Google exploration we know that we have the answer to the question we originally asked, and
yet we find ourselves looking for more information and more and more.

Unpredictability is the key — Dopamine is also stimulated by unpredictability. When

something happens that is not exactly predictable, that stimulates the dopamine system. Think
about these electronic gadgets and devices. Our emails and tweets and texts show up, but we
don’t know exactly when they will or whom they will be from. It’s unpredictable. This is exactly
what stimulates the dopamine system. It’s the same system at work for gambling and slot
machines. (For those of you reading this who are “old school” psychologists, you may remember
“variable reinforcement schedules”. Dopamine is involved in variable reinforcement schedules.
This is why these are so powerful).

When you hear the “ding” that you have a text — The dopamine system is especially
sensitive to “cues” that a reward is coming. If there is a small, specific cue that signifies that
something is going to happen, that sets off our dopamine system. So when there is a sound when
a text message or email arrives, or a visual cue, it enhances the addictive effect (for the
psychologists out there: remember Pavlov).
140 characters is even more addictive — And the dopamine system is most powerfully
stimulated when the information coming in is small so that it doesn’t full satisfy. A short text or
tweet (can only be 140 characters!) is ideally suited to send our dopamine system raging.

Not without costs — This constant stimulation of the dopamine system can be exhausting. We
are getting caught in an endless dopamine loop.

Write a comment and share whether you get caught in these dopamine loops and whether you
think we should use what we know about these systems to create devices and websites that
stimulate them.

20

Blood in your veins is blue

The de-oxygenated blood returning to the heart through the veins is not truly blue. (It’s actually a
darker red.) School diagrams show veins in blue for clarity, but the blue color for veins actually
comes from light hitting our skin and scattering into the wavelength on the color spectrum we
notice as blue.

19
Your fingers swell up from water

The swelling of your fingers at the pool or after long showers isn’t from absorbing water, rather
it’s from your body narrowing blood vessels by contracting their muscle walls, causing them to
look wrinkled. It’s believed this may have given our ancestors better grip in wet areas, though
it’s been shown we can’t handle things any better with wrinkled digits.

18

Sunflowers follow the sun across the sky

Sunflowers don’t follow the sun across the sky but point East all day. Before the famous flower
heads appear, though, the baby buds follow the sun to set the soon-to-be flowers in the right
direction. Plants can be smart too.

17

Gum takes 7 years to digest

Maybe you remember hearing on The Magic School Bus that gum takes 7 years to digest. Not
so. Gum, being indigestible as insoluble fiber, passes through your digestive system at the same
rate as whatever else you ate that day.

16

Goldie the fish has a memory of 5 seconds

Your home goldfish has a better memory than you think. A goldfish’s memory doesn’t last just a
few seconds; rather, it’s upward of a few months.

1. People with high levels of testosterone get pleasure from the anger of others.

2. People with low self-esteem tend to humiliate others. Subjectswho were told that the results
of their IQ test were poor expressed more national and religious prejudices, than those who
reported higher results.

3. People sincerely believe thattheir negative opinions about others are truthful and have no
connection with them and theirself-confidence. In fact, the humiliation of others helps them
restore their own self-esteem.

4. The behavior of people is affected by bodily sensations. For example, there is a strong
association between heaviness and such features as “importance” and “seriousness”. A person
is assessed as more serious and sustained, if his CV was applied in a heavy folder, and vice
versa.
5. Similarly, the feeling of rigidity and hardness makes people inflexible. People sitting on hard
chairs were more uncompromising in the negotiations. Feeling a rough surface causes in people
a sense of the complexity of human relations, and cold is tightly connected with the feeling of
loneliness.

6. People tend to commit immoral acts or do not fulfill someone’s request for help, if no effort
is needed and they do not have to refuse a person directly.

7. However, more people behave “as expected” if they have to take a moral decision in front of
someone.

8. Lying requires a lot of mental effort. A person who is lying has to keep in mind at the same
time the lie – that it to say, and the truth – in order to hide it. As a result, he uses simple
sentences and finds it more difficult to cope with mental tasks.

9. When people are being watched, they behave better. And the illusion of being watched
works, too. It was enough to hang a picture of human eyes in a self-service cafeteria, so that
more people began to collect their dishes.

10. Behavior affects morality. People who lied, betrayed someone or committed other immoral
act begin to perceive what is good or bad in another way.

11. Attractive and honest appearance can easily be misleading. People tend to trust appearance
more than sincerity.

12. Appearance plays an important role even when voting during elections. Maturity and
physical attractiveness of politicians were mostly important for voters’ choice (unconsciously, of
course).

13. More successful and rich people are considered to be more intelligent and wise, and vice
versa. Often, people tend to think that those who are successful or those who suffer deserve it.

14. Happier is not the one who has a lot of money, but the one who has more than his neighbor
does. People constantly compare themselves with others and feel satisfied if they are superior
in some respect.

15. Anger increases the desire of possession in people. People make more efforts to obtain the
object that is associated with angry faces.
16. The more complex the decision to be taken is, the more people tend to leave things as they
are. If the store has too much choice and people cannot immediately find out which of the
products is better, most probably they will leave without buying.

17. When people feel they have no control over what is happening, they tend to see non-
existent patterns in unrelated pictures and believe in conspiracy theories.

18. People regret quick decisions, even if the results are satisfying. Not the actual time allotted
for the decision matters, but the feeling that the time was enough.

19. Not all risks are the same. The same person can fearlessly jump with a parachute, but be
afraid of his boss. Or to train tigers, but feel embarrassed when talking to a pretty woman.

20. Boredom has a bright side. Bored people are often looking for ways to do good things as the
entertainment bores them and does not bring meaning to their lives.

21. People with higher number of moles tend to live longer than people with lesser number of
moles.

22. Blushing: Charles Darwin struggled to explain why evolution made us turn red when we lie,
which alerts others. However, some think it may help diffuse confrontation or foster intimacy
by revealing weakness.

23. When filming summer scenes in winter, actors suck on ice cubes just before the camera
rolls – it cools their mouths so their breath doesn’t condense in the cold air.

24. Thinking about your muscles can make you stronger.

25. Grapefruit scent will make middle aged women appear six  years younger to men. The
perception is not reciprocal and the grapefruit scent on men has no effect on women’s
perception.

26. The world’s youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.

27. The colder the room you sleep in, the better the chances are that you’ll have a bad dream.
28. There are more people alive today than have ever died.

29. Women’s hair is about half the diameter of men’s hair

30. Women blink twice as many times as men do.

31. The average person who stops smoking requires one hour less sleep a night.

32. Laughing lowers levels of stress hormones and strengthens the immune system. Six-year-
olds laugh an average of 300 times a day. Adults only laugh 15 to 100 times a day.

33. Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.

34. The human heart creates enough pressure while pumping to squirt blood 30 feet!

35. The brain operates on the same amount of power as 10-watt light bulb. The cartoon image
of a light bulb over your head when a great thought occurs isn’t too far off the mark. Your brain
generates as much energy as a small light bulb even when you’re sleeping.

36. The brain is much more active at night than during the day.

37. The brain itself cannot feel pain. While the brain might be the pain center when you cut
your finger or burn yourself, the brain itself does not have pain receptors and cannot feel pain.

38. The fastest growing nail is on the middle finger. And the nail on the middle finger of your
dominant hand will grow the fastest of all. Why is not entirely known, but nail growth is related
to the length of the finger, with the longest fingers growing nails the fastest and shortest the
slowest.

39. The lifespan of a human hair is 3 to 7 years on average.

40. Human hair is virtually indestructible. Aside from it’s flammability, human hair decays at
such a slow rate that it is practically non-disintegrative. Hair cannot be destroyed by cold,
change of climate, water, or other natural forces and it is resistant to many kinds of acids and
corrosive chemicals.

41. The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve razorblades. Hydrochloric acid, the
type found in your stomach, is not only good at dissolving the pizza you had for dinner but can
also eat through many types of metal.

42. The surface area of a human lung is equal to a tennis court.

43. Sneezes regularly exceed 100 mph.

44. Approximately 75% of human waste is made of water.

45. The average person expels flatulence 14 times each day. Even if you’d like to think you’re
too dignified to pass gas, the reality is that almost everyone will at least a few times a day.

46. Earwax production is necessary for good ear health. While many people find earwax to be
disgusting, it’s actually a very important part of your ear’s defense system. It protects the
delicate inner ear from bacteria, fungus, dirt and even insects. It also cleans and lubricates the
ear canal.

47. Babies are always born with blue eyes.  The melanin in a newborn’s eyes often needs time
after birth to be fully deposited or to be darkened by exposure to ultraviolet light, later
revealing the baby’s true eye color.

48. Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell.

49. After eating too much, your hearing is less sharp.

50. Women are born better smellers than men and remain better smellers over life.

51. Your nose can remember 50,000 different scents.

52. Nails and hair do not continue to grow after we die. They do appear longer when we die,
however, as the skin dehydrates and pulls back from the nail beds and scalp.

53. By the age of 60, most people will have lost about half their taste buds. Perhaps you
shouldn’t trust your grandma’s cooking as much as you do.

54. Your eyes are always the same size from birth but your nose and ears never stop growing.

55. By 60 years of age, 60-percent of men and 40-percent of women will snore.
56. Monday is the day of the week when the risk of heart attack is greatest.  A ten year study in
Scotland found that 20% more people die of heart attacks on Mondays than any other day of
the week. Researchers theorize that it’s a combination of too much fun over the weekend with
the stress of going back to work that causes the increase.

57. Provided there is water, the average human could survive a month to two months without
food depending on their body fat and other factors.

58. Over 90% of diseases are caused or complicated by stress.

59. A human head remains conscious for about 15 to 20 seconds after it is been decapitated.
While it might be gross to think about, the blood in the head may be enough to keep someone
alive and conscious for a few seconds after the head has been separated from the body, though
reports as to the accuracy of this are widely varying.

60. Babies are born with 300 bones, but by adulthood the number is reduced to 206.

61. We are about 1 cm taller in the morning than in the evening.

62. It takes twice as long to lose new muscle if you stop working out than it did to gain it. Lazy
people out there shouldn’t use this as motivation to not work out, however. It’s relatively easy
to build new muscle tissue and get your muscles in shape, so if anything, this fact should be
motivation to get off the couch and get moving.

63. Tears and mucus contain an enzyme (lysozyme) that breaks down the cell wall of many
bacteria.

64. It is not possible to tickle yourself. Even the most ticklish among us do not have the ability
to tickle ourselves.

65. The width of your armspan stretched out is the length of your whole body. While not exact
down to the last millimeter, your armspan is a pretty good estimator of your height.

66. Humans are the only animals to produce emotional tears.

67. Women burn fat more slowly than men, by a rate of about 50 calories a day. Most men
have a much easier time burning fat than women. Women, because of their reproductive role,
generally require a higher basic body fat proportion than men, and as a result their bodies don’t
get rid of excess fat at the same rate as men.

68. Koalas and primates are the only animals with unique fingerprints. Humans, apes and koalas
are unique in the animal kingdom due to the tiny prints on the fingers of their hands.

69. One human hair can support 3.5 ounces. That’s about the weight of two full size candy bars,
and with hundreds of thousands of hairs on the human head, makes the tale of Rapunzel much
more plausible.

70. Cna yuo raed tihs? I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The
phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it
dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit
and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit
a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as
a wlohe. Azanmig huh?

71. It cost 7 million dollars to build the Titanic and 200 million to make a film about it.

72. Obedience: Do we do what we’re told?

This classic study is the closest psychology has come so far to understanding Nazi Germany, or
why good people will do terrible things to others simply on the orders of an authority figure.
Stanley Milgram showed that ordinary people would administer shocks of rising intensity to an
innocent “victim” — though most did it highly unwillingly — because an experimenter, the
“authority figure,” told them that they must. This study has been extremely controversial, yet
the findings remain as relevant today as they were when it was done in the 1960s. Milgram
demonstrated that “just following orders” is far from an easy excuse and that resisting
authority can be very difficult indeed.

73. The Stanford Prison Experiment: The power of the situation

In some ways similar to Milgram’s study, this experiment was often mentioned in connection
with the Abu Ghraib scandal. In 1971, Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University recruited college
students to play a “game” in which they would be randomly assigned to be “prisoners” and
“guards” and to spend two weeks within a simulated prison on the campus. The experiment
was called off after six days because the “guards” had become vicious and sadistic and the
“prisoners” passive and extremely stressed. Like Milgram’s participants, the students were
ordinary people who had been chosen specifically because they were physically and
psychologically healthy, yet the power of the situation and its realistic nature came to control
their behavior in destructive ways.

74.  The bystander effect: Who’s responsible?

The famous case of Kitty Genovese, in which a young woman was stabbed to death outside her
apartment building while a number of people reportedly watched and did nothing, has inspired
study of how people react in an ambiguous emergency situation. The findings showed that the
greater the number of people who saw the incident, the less likely it was that anyone would
intervene. Possible explanations for the effect were, first, that people watch the reactions of
other people to judge the seriousness of a situation. If we see others watching and no one
interfering, we’re likely to feel that they know more than we do about what’s happening; if they
do nothing, neither do we. The second explanation is diffusion of responsibility, or the “it’s not
up to me” reaction. We tend to believe that if it’s an emergency, someone else will help;
therefore,we don’t need to. This explanation is enforced by the fact that, in experiments, a
single witness was far more likely to help than was an individual in a group, perhaps because
the single witness realized that he or she alone bore the responsibility to act.

75.  Conformity: Do we trust our own judgment?

You are shown a drawing of a single vertical line along with one of three vertical lines of varying
lengths. You’re asked to tell which of the three lines is the same length as the single one. The
difference seems very clear to you; you wonder why you’re being asked. Now suppose you’re
with a group of other people who are asked the same question before you are. Each one of
them chooses a line that you believe is clearly the wrong length. When it’s your turn to answer,
will you stick with your original judgment or go along with the group and give the wrong
answer? Psychologist Solomon Asch performed this experiment, instructing all but one person
— the naive participant — to give the wrong answer. He found that more than three quarters
of the naive participants agreed with the majority on at least one of six trials. However, in trials
in which one other person went against the majority, the naive participant did also. It seems
that unanimity is a very powerful incentive to conformity, but once it is broken, individual
judgment is again free to assert itself.

76. Aggression: Does exposure to media violence cause violent behavior?

This is another highly controversial question that has been debated for decades. Albert Bandura
in the 1960s made a case for social learning when he showed children a film of adults behaving
aggressively toward an inflatable doll; later the children, left alone with the doll, imitated the
behavior of the adults they had seen, behaving violently toward the doll. To this day
psychologists continue to find evidence that adults who were heavy viewers of violent
programs as children are more likely to commit domestic violence, to aggress against others
when insulted or offended, and to have been convicted of crimes. Is it time for our society to
take these studies seriously?

77. Foot-in-the-door: Just one little favor?

This phenomenon and its variant, the door-in-the-face, are beloved of marketers and
salespeople. Has anyone ever asked you to sign a petition for a cause or a political candidate?
And if you did so, were you later asked to donate money to the cause or the candidate? If so,
you have experienced the foot-in-the-door technique. In theory, when a person does a small
favor, he or she feels a measure of commitment to the person or cause and will infer that “I
believe in this, so I should invest more in it.” You have experienced the door-in-the-face
technique if you have ever refused to do a large favor for someone and subsequently agreed to
a smaller one. For instance, a charity spokesperson may call you and ask for a donation of a
rather large sum, such as one hundred dollars. If you don’t agree to this, the caller will lower
the amount until you do agree, thus inducing you to contribute perhaps more than you would
have if you hadn’t “slammed the door” on the higher requests.

78. Cognitive dissonance: Do I act as I think, or think as I act?

When people are confronted with behaviors of their own that contradict their own beliefs
about themselves, what will they do? Try to explain away the behavior? Change their behavior?
Or change their attitudes? This is the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance. When we
contradict ourselves, it’s uncomfortable, and we try to ease that discomfort somehow.
Interestingly, much psychology research has found that under certain circumstances people
find it easier to change their beliefs about themselves than to change their behavior, especially
when they were not under any pressure to make the choice they did.

79. The fundamental attribution error: He did that, so he must be a bad person

Suppose you meet a new acquaintance on the street. You say hello, but he doesn’t respond.
Will you think this person is rude or unfriendly? Now suppose you’re walking on the street. You
have a headache or a bad cold; you’re worried about a problem at work. Then someone asks
you the next day why you ignored her on the street when she spoke to you. Does that mean
you’re rude or unfriendly? Or did you simply not notice her because you had so much on your
mind? The fundamental attribution error refers to our tendency to attribute another person’s
behavior to internal causes — their personality or character — rather than to a particular
situation. Conversely, we understand that our own behavior often reflects the situation we’re in
at the time. We have access to our own thoughts and feelings that we don’t have to those of
other people. This is also known as the actor-observer bias: We can see another person’s
behavior but not its underlying cause, as we can with our own behavior. Incorrect judgments,
poor communication, and misunderstandings may result from such cognitive biases.
80. Groupthink: Do groups make better decisions?
You have probably been on committees or attended decision-making meetings in your life or in
business. In the best of these, the group discusses all possible courses of action and their pros
and cons and listens to everyone’s opinion before deciding. But what about such disastrous and
high-profile cases as the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and the launch of the Challenger space
shuttle, cases that had most people wondering “What were they thinking?” Psychologist Irving
Janis analyzed several of these cases and found that some common elements led to doomed
decisions in high-stress and important situations: group cohesiveness, a striving for unanimity
that overpowers the ability of individual members to realistically appraise other courses of
action; pressures for conformity in reaching a decision; self-censoring of different ideas;
guarding oneself against information that conflicts with the group’s desired solution; and
illusions and misperceptions of invulnerability.

81. The halo effect: Does a pretty face make a pretty soul?
Here is an effect that advertisers, marketers, and political advisors count on: We tend to see
attractive people as being superior in their other attributes as well. We believe they are
intelligent, likeable, even good and moral people. Thus those who want to influence our
opinions pay big money to entertainment stars and athletes to endorse their products or points
of view. It’s also why we pay exorbitant amounts of money for famous designer shoes or
sunglasses. You would probably protest — as would most people — that you aren’t influenced
by these superficial things, but many people believe in “love at first sight.” Have you ever met a
plain or “nerdish” person and felt indifferent about getting to know him or her? These kinds of
global judgments may well operate subliminally and powerfully and unconsciously affect our
behaviors and beliefs. Might we have more money and a lower divorce rate if we didn’t let our
minds fool us in such a way?

82. Automatic stereotyping: Can we control our prejudices?

Most of us sincerely believe that we aren’t prejudiced, and yet many of us have had the
experience of being alone on a street at night, seeing someone of a different race or ethnic
group coming toward us, and mentally flinching just a little. If we do react in this way, does it
mean we are secretly prejudiced? Psychologists have studied automatic stereotyping — the fact
that just having knowledge of a stereotype automatically triggers prejudiced thoughts and
behaviors when we see a person from a stereotyped group. They suggest that these
stereotypes have become so well learned that they have become unconscious. However, on the
hopeful side, some researchers believe that conscious cognitive effort to inhibit stereotypes
may eventually result in truly changed attitudes, particularly among people who are genuinely
low in prejudice and motivated to change their reactions.
83. Minority influence: The majority doesn’t always win
Many of the preceding studies present a rather discouraging view that human beings are easily
manipulated and tend to go along with the crowd. But this isn’t always the case. Researchers
have identified situations in which the minority can influence the majority: for instance, when
the minority is consistent and when its stances are moderate rather than rigid. In several of the
studies mentioned above, the minority view has been effective. For example, when Milgram
included a confederate who refused to progress with the shocks, the compliance level among
his real participants dropped significantly. Similarly, conformity in the line-length experiment
decreased when just one confederate disagreed with the majority’s wrong judgment. And a
dissenter in a cohesive group could prevent the “groupthink” effect.
Many of these findings may seem pessimistic about human nature, but when we know our
weaknesses, we can work to overcome, change, or accommodate them and thus improve our
relationships and our society. Which of these studies do you find most important for your own
personal and work life?