Mind over muscle: Can belief actually make you stronger?
Max Chadwick-Waldford Walk into any gym and you’ll see people chasing an edge: some drinking protein shakes, others swearing by their pre-workout, a few entranced by the latest recovery gadget. But here’s something most of us don’t think about: what if some of your progress doesn’t come from any of that? What if part of your strength actually comes from what you believe? That might … Continue reading Mind over muscle: Can belief actually make you stronger?
The default Mode Network and the Death of the Ego: the effects of Psychedelics
Harry John Psychedelic experiences often feature a profound ego death: a loss of the usual sense of “I.” One DMT (Dimethyltryptamine) user vividly described this as an explosion of selfhood: “I had my ego exploded in fragments and ‘I’ stopped being ‘me’,” he wrote, feeling himself “rebuilt with every part of the cosmos.” In Freud’s theory, ‘the ego’ is the executive mediator between instinct (the … Continue reading The default Mode Network and the Death of the Ego: the effects of Psychedelics
Are drunk words truly sober thoughts?
Arman Farahi-Far We’ve probably all heard someone say, “I didn’t mean it, I was drunk,” after a night of questionable words or reckless actions. But is it really true? Are drunk words sober thoughts? The concept seems simple enough, when drunk, people lose touch with reason, letting the filters that usually mask their genuine feelings slip. However, at the same time can these unpolished and … Continue reading Are drunk words truly sober thoughts?
Unlocking the linguistic code: How Humans acquire language
William Bryceson Where the learning of sports, skills and knowledge are studied definitively, one type of learning remains in discussion, contested, and argued on how it happens: language learning. The process of general learning can be explained by behaviourism – a psychological approach focused on observable behaviour, viewing learning as a change in behaviour (mostly due to conditioning), repetition, and responding to stimuli from the … Continue reading Unlocking the linguistic code: How Humans acquire language
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SIX DEGREES: INSIDE THE WATTS-STROGATZ MODEL
Jaden Potishko Could any two people on earth be linked by a chain of no more than six acquaintances? Social psychology and network science have allowed this seemingly fallible claim to linger in the popular imagination for almost a century. It has achieved some familiarity through John Guare’s play Six Degrees of Separation (1990) as well as through several books. On top of being an … Continue reading THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SIX DEGREES: INSIDE THE WATTS-STROGATZ MODEL
Reframing Autism: From Disability to Innovation
Dr Lizzie Kock Chartered Psychologist When I first began my career as a psychologist, autism was widely defined as a disability, characterised by a set of core diagnostic criteria. Historically, it was often associated with intellectual disability. For context, only around 2% of the global adult population meets the diagnostic criteria for an intellectual disability, characterised by significant impairments in intellectual and adaptive functioning, with … Continue reading Reframing Autism: From Disability to Innovation
Psychology of Movember-Why men find it difficult to speak up.
Each November, millions of men grow mustaches for others. Movember began as a campaign to raise awareness for both prostate cancer and testicular cancer, while also raising awareness for men’s mental health. Research shows that men are less likely to express vulnerability, suppressing any emotions that can be perceived to be “weak”, or against the traditional, outdated form of masculinity that contains stoicism and a … Continue reading Psychology of Movember-Why men find it difficult to speak up.
Can Machines Possess Free Will? A Psychological Perspective
Machines increasingly shape human lives in high-stakes psychological contexts. The COMPAS algorithm in the US, for instance, assesses reoffending risk and influences parole decisions, raising the question of whether such systems possess free will, a prerequisite for moral responsibility [1]. Large language models (LLMs), in particular, can appear to act without direct human guidance. This essay argues that current machines lack free will because their … Continue reading Can Machines Possess Free Will? A Psychological Perspective
Love and Its Effects
Love remains to this day as one of the most convoluted and indescribable aspects of our lives; ask anyone to define love and watch them draw a blank. People have written poems and ballads about it, fought wars over it, and built civilisations with it as the epicentre, and yet when pressed, most people would struggle to define it effectively. The inability to pin down … Continue reading Love and Its Effects
The psychology of ‘six degrees’: Inside the Watts-Strogatz model
Could any two people on earth be linked by a chain of no more than six acquaintances? Social psychology and network science have allowed this seemingly fallible claim to linger in the popular imagination for almost a century. It has achieved some familiarity through John Guare’s play Six Degrees of Separation (1990) as well as through several books. On top of being an incredibly interesting … Continue reading The psychology of ‘six degrees’: Inside the Watts-Strogatz model
The Dangerous Misrepresentation of Antidepressants
The public image of antidepressants is crucial to their ethical administration, as it is vital that mental health be treated seriously. Therefore, the way they are perceived by the public must be carefully considered to encourage those who need them and dissuade those who do not. This was a more serious issue in the 20th century than it is today—or so it seemed. This is … Continue reading The Dangerous Misrepresentation of Antidepressants
The Brain That Changes Itself – Norman Doidge
According to Norman Doidge, it is possible to make blind people see again, to recover from a debilitating stroke, and to live life with only half of a brain. To somebody who has not read The Brain That Changes Itself, these must seem like ridiculous assumptions that border on the sci-fi, but through the simple biological phenomenon of neuroplasticity these things, and many more, become … Continue reading The Brain That Changes Itself – Norman Doidge
