What is the field of psychology? It’s a vast subject that I can only briefly touch on in this series of posts. It can be seen as the bridge between philosophy and physiology. Physiology is the branch of biology that deals with the normal functions of living organisms and their parts. Philosophy deals with thoughts and ideas, and psychology deals with how we come to have these thoughts and what they tell us about how our brains work.

Psychology is the scientific study of mental processes and behavior. It’s about how we think, feel, act and remember. Psychology can be defined as the science of the mind and behavior. Research in psychology has four main goals: to describe, explain (why), predict and bring about change.

As the DK book called The Psychology Book Big Ideas Simply Explained says, all sciences developed from philosophy by applying scientific methods to philosophical questions. Only in the 19th century did psychology become established as a scientific discipline in its own right. The world’s first laboratory of experimental psychology was established by Wilhelm Wundt at the University of Leipzig in 1879. By the way, the oldest monument to Johann Sebastian Bach is in Leipzig Germany. All the branches of psychology grew in the 20th century.

In the early days of the development of the discipline of psychology, there were two different approaches. In the United States, the roots lay in philosophy and was therefore theoretical in nature. In Europe, psychology was rooted in the sciences, so the emphasis was on mental processes like memory and perception.

Thoughts are very subjective but actions are more objective. It’s much easier to simply observe an animal or person’s actions than their thoughts that proceed it. Ivan Pavlov’s experiments in the 1890’s were key to the advancement of psychology . He proved that animals could be conditioned to produce a response, an idea that developed into a new movement called behaviorism. Behavior is shaped by interaction with the environment. This is a “stimulus-response” theory. This spawned new learning theories.

Psychology moved through several movements, namely philosophy, behaviorism, psychotherapy and the study of cognitive, social and developmental psychology, and finally to the psychology of difference.

Some Tips

Here are some tips based on actual experiments. Many of these are based on a course on The Great Courses Signature Collection. The course is called Outsmart Yourself: Brain-Based Strategies to a Better You that was presented by Dr. Peter M. Vishton (Ph.D.), an associate professor of psychology at William & Mary in the United States.

• If you are in a noisy place and you want your friend to understand you. Talk into their right ear.
• Do difficult things toward the beginning of your day, not at the end.
• We use more than 10% of our brains.
• When you set a challenging long-term goal for yourself, tell only a few people about it. The more people you tell, the less likely you will achieve it.
• Generally adding motivation (or “pressure”) to complete a set of tasks well, will increase the performance level, but only to a certain point, at which the pressure is too great and the participant may “choke”.
• We all have a basic desire to affect our environment in some way, babies a few months old. We get a shot of dopamine after accomplishment.
• Making a check mark on a to-do list is very powerful (celebrate accomplishments)
• Break large tasks into smaller parts (even very small)
• If you find yourself procrastinating on something, first, don’t do anything for several minutes, then start.
• Bad habits happen, but when they do, mark them down somewhere where you have quick easy access (notepad or something) and at the end of each day, simply read the list. Often we do things “unconsciously”
• Positive reinforcement is when something pleasant happens after you perform a behavior.
• Most of our behaviors are habits. Habits are important.
• Generally, you are more productive and effective when you are monotasking rather than multitasking, and this is particularly true when you are learning something new or something difficult.
• Presented with a range of possible choices, make a firm choice as soon as reasonably possible and commit. Don’t spend too much time second guessing.
• Once you decide on some option, your brain shifts it’s future preferences to perceive whatever you have chosen as being more positive.
• Human decision making seems to function most optimally when there are 6 choices, or even fewer. Too many choices can be problematic. Don’t overwhelm yourself and others. There is such a thing as too much choice. By reducing the options, you can decide faster, better and with more satisfaction.
• Practice is the thing that determines how successful you will be, much more so than talent. Talent matters less than we think it does.
• More practice will always make you better at it, even if you are already an expert. Sometimes it may feel like you are not improving, on a plateau for example, but further practice does bring improvements. For many many tasks and skills, it takes about 10 thousands hours.
• How do you practice effectively? Practice with the intention to improve. Target your practice to your current level of skill – not too easy and not too hard. Seek immediate feedback from yourself or others. You need to know when you are doing it properly. Repeat the same task again and again until it is done right, then do a similar, new task.
• Break down the practice tasks into small pieces and repeat each of those, then put them together. As a musician, play parts of a song over and over before trying to play the whole song. Master the basics. Have a mentor.
• You need 10 thousand hours of this deliberate practice to become an expert – that’s 5 years.
• Mentors are able to get you focused on information that is most important. They can help you to keep distinctive biases you have out of the picture. They can help to prevent any bad habits you might develop early on in your training.
• There may be two main types of meditation. Concentration meditation involves focusing your mind on one thing. Mindfulness meditation is about thinking of oneself and one’s surroundings without thinking about anything in particular. It’s about rejecting distracting thoughts.
• For optimal brain health get about 8 hours of sleep each night. Your brain, when you sleep, is not turning off or slowing down. It’s in a different state of brainwave patterns, in one of the four stages of sleep, the forth is the deepest.
• Avoid afternoon napping as it may end up reducing your REM sleep the next night. However, a short power nap (20 to 60 minutes) can be helpful only if your are sleep deprived (less than 8 hours at night).
• Keep your sleeping space just for sleeping. Avoid the blue light of TV or computer screens before going to bed.
• Listening to happy music increases creativity. A happier mood broadens your focus of attention, whereas a sad mood allows you to better focus and also ignore extra information. Before doing a challenging task, start with doing something that makes you happy or simply think pleasant and happy thoughts.
• Walking outside (and even inside to some extent) boosts creative thinking. Having a variety of life activities boosts creativity.
• Before you undertake a serious creative session, start with thinking about it before you begin. Repeat the challenge in your mind several times in in different ways. Don’t forget to take breaks. “Sleeping on it” can also help. Sleeping and dreaming enhances creative problem solving.
• Note that most creative people are very specific and disciplined as to when, where and how hard they work. Thomas Edison said that genius is about 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. You will need to search hard for creative solutions.
• Imagination is very powerful. If you want to train your muscles to be stronger, you can exercise them physically or you can train them mentally. Mental training is almost as good as physical training, but not a complete substitute for physical exercise. This whole concept is amazing.
• To enhance performance, the mental imagery should be from a first-person perspective, multimodal, precise (detailed) and successful.
• To reduce age-related brain shrinkage, keep your brain active. Moderate physical activity helps. Try new things. One of the best ways to stimulate brain activity is to try new things. Over time, as we become experts at an activity, research shows that we use less and less of our brain. Keep doing familiar things. .
• Laughter stimulates the brain and prevents brain decline as we age.
• If we are experiencing some mild depression, which we all have at some time, make yourself more active. That can be a challenge. Research shows that physical activity is one of the best things you can do. There may be a link between inflammation and depression, suggesting a very low daily dose of Aspirin may help. Fermented foods may help.
• Fears are learned. They are almost never something you are born with. The good news is that you can un-learn a fear. We have short-term memory and long-term memory. Talking about your fears can reduce your fears.
• To feel happier, smile. The brain controls your body, but your body does influence your brain. If you don’t feel like smiling, do it anyway. Fake it if you have to. It will elevate your mood.
• If you are trying to solve a difficult problem, keep moving (physically). Stand. Don’t sit or lie down. Try walking around as you think about the problem.
• Are you feeling angry because someone is being mean to you? Do something nice to them. Smile warmly. Compliment them. What happens is that the aggressor’s brain is affected and often they stop being mean to you.
• When you say “I can’t do X”, your brain associates can’t with external controls, but if you say “I don’t do X”, your brain associates X with internal controls. If you are try to stop a bad habit for example, use the word “don’t” as it is more powerful and increases your changes of success. X could be anything, like an unhealthy food. The conclusion is that language matters.
• Are you anxious or nervous because you are about to take a test or speak publicly at an event? Try converting anxiety to excitement by saying “I am excited” to yourself. Make it more positive. It might lower your anxiety. Also, I’ve found that focusing on the importance of your message instead of yourself helps lower anxiety.
• The reciprocity reflex state that you could give a small gift to someone before asking for something. The person will be more likely to give you something in return. Be sure to let them know that the small gift is something you are doing for them, personally.
• When you ask someone for something, say “because I…”, and give a reason for the request. The word “because” is important here.
• There are a few persuasion techniques you can use. Give a small gift at the beginning. Engage in some small-talk at the beginning (highlighting your similarity to someone/common ground), and lastly make a small request first in order to get you ‘foot in the door’.
• We value things based on their benefits to us. If the item is scarce (hard to come by) then it’s value increases in the minds of those interested in it.
• Language matters to us. Lost your keys? Say “keys” out loud as you look for them. This increases your chances of finding them within a given amount of time.
• The way you describe something changes how you evaluate the thing. You can enhance your thinking about something by saying it out loud. Warfian.
• Most 2-year-olds know the meanings of about 200 words. By the time they are 10 years old they know about 10 thousand words. By the time they graduate high school most know about 25,000 words and by the time they graduate college, they know the meaning of about 35,000 words.
• Suppose you want to stop a bad habit. Suppose it is sugary cereal. We should say “I don’t eat that” instead of “I can’t eat that”. Can’t implies an external control and don’t implies an internal one. Internal controls are more effective than external ones. Language matters.
• Self-talk regulates our emotions. To reduce your stress or anxiety about a situation, refer to yourself in the third person.
• People prefer people with large pupils. Its more romantic to be in a dimly lit restaurant partly because people will look more attractive with their larger pupils.
• Note that love is a human requirement. Without any love, we simply die. All cultures have at least one word for love.
• The more time we spend with something, they more likely we will begin to find it more and more attractive. However, too much exposure will decrease attraction.
• If you imagine being happy, you increase your chances of being happy. Thinking about crying makes you feel a little sad.
• Thanking people will make you feel happier. Gratitude increases happiness. Be thankful. Adapt an attitude of gratitude. It calls your attention to the good things.
• Having no extra money at all can make you unhappy. Having more money will result in more happiness. How much money is required? An annual household income of about 75,000 USD (as of the year 2010). The number varies from state to state of course. The amount of additional happiness you get for each additional dollar you earn gets smaller and smaller and smaller. Above 75,000, there is not a lot of extra happiness. Beyond that you can do things to increase your happiness such as practicing gratitude and mindfulness.
• Visiting nature will also increase your happiness level. Even better, get some exercise at the same time, if you can. It only takes a few minutes for the effects to start to work. Just looking out the window at pleasant natural surroundings helps.
• Just thinking about time for a few minutes, it tends to increase happiness. If you are going out to work at the local cafe to get some computer, research or other work done, first think about money, not time. To boost happiness levels, think about time. How much time do you have? What do you want to do in the next few days? You’ll like think about social activities, implement them and then feel happier.
• Happier people produce more work and better quality work. Work is a source of satisfaction. Happy people are more productive across a wide range of tasks. They are not distracted as much, less irritable, and have better memory performance. When you are happy, you tend to do better work. When you work well, it doesn’t always result in more happiness.
• It turns out that happier people have better immune function.
• To become happier, intentionally practice optimism. Our brains are wired up to recall negative information more than positive information. By recall we mean stored in long-term memory. Practice optimism. Interpret events on the positive side.
• If you are patient and persistent, you can outsmart automatic processes and take control.