Psych stuff round-up – March 2022
As we wave goodbye to Q1, it’s time to compile my quarterly round-up of articles and resources based on psychology. I hope you find it useful.
How are those New Year resolutions looking?
It’s no surprise that we’re more likely to stick to healthy behaviours – jump on the bike, eat well, stay hydrated, etc – if we’re in a good mood. Seems this is more likely if we’ve slept well, reports BPS.
Q: Do you make life messy?
A: er…yes (for many of us). The no-nonsense Positivity Blog has some simple steps to make things simpler.
How are your guts – and why does that matter?
Intriguing…do our guts really take an active role in analytic thinking? Find out more via HBR.
Does your past show up in the present?
I’m a big fan of Susan David’s work and in this post she shares steps to check our behaviours: are they working for us or not? And if the answer is ‘not’ we can choose to behave differently. You can take Susan’s Emotional Agility quiz and watch her TED talk
How dark is the Dark Knight?
The author of ‘Batman and Psychology: A dark and Stormy Knight’ brings more than mere fandom – Travis Langley, PhD is a distinguished professor of psychology. Looking forward to seeing ‘the darkest depiction of the Dark Knight yet’.
Building rapport – is it easy?
Mind Tools shares four simple steps to take. Top tip 1: don’t do all four ways all at once; take it one step at a time. Top tip 2: notice the responses you get and learn what works well – and what may need a bit more practice. Find more in their video.
What to do instead of doom-scrolling?
Hands up if you can’t stop watching the terrible situation in Ukraine. Partly because you’ve never witnessed such horror in your life, partly because logging off would seem like not caring. Eric Weiner’s article draws on the work of one of my heroes of psychology, Dr Martin Seligman and his work on ‘learned helplessness’. That’s pretty much what we end up with when we doom-scroll. Weiner urges us to ‘do-scroll’. No, it probably won’t hasten a truce. But it will help you weather the storm, doing what you can.
What is kindness?
The All in the Mind podcast is back with a series, ‘The Anatomy of Kindness’. Catch up on the BBC’s public science project on Kindness.
If you’ve got a question about how psychology can help you at work and beyond, please get in touch and I’ll do my best to find some ‘psych stuff’ that will help in the next post – in June.
Dawn is the author of ‘The Feedback Book’ and ‘How to be Zoomly at work’
