What makes a person tick? Why do some people do the things they do? Understanding this enigma is easier said than done. There aren’t any easy-to-understand answers to these questions. Psychology is a field that tries to understand those deeper aspects of human nature and apply them to the outside world.

Several habits affect our psychological well-being as humans. Research has shown that fasting can increase the positivity rate in those who undergo it. It’s also essential for clearer thoughts, enhanced memory, and overall acuity of other senses.

Interval fasting has been proven to lower blood cholesterol levels. There is evidence of a positive effect of fasting on the cognitive abilities of the brain. This method is used by people with memory impairment, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

Fasting helps to reduce inflammation in the human body, such as in rheumatoid arthritis. Fasting reduces visceral fat (covering internal organs) and improves insulin sensitivity in cases of carbohydrate metabolism disorders.

Therefore, before we delve into the main details of this post, we recommend you fast for at least 8 hours per day. Fasting is now easier because there are app to track fasting in real time with great content to keep you company.

Psychology Terms That You Didn’t Know Before

Every day we are surrounded by many people, interacting with whom we notice certain traits of their character and behavior patterns. Have you ever wondered why some people behave very strangely and some, on the contrary, show themselves in the most dignified way? It’s all explained in psychology.

Below are some essential psychology terms:

Egocentricity Schemas

Egocentrism is a cognitive bias in which people see the world from their perspective rather than as an objective observer. This can cause individuals to be overly self-centered and not realize they are being judged. Egocentrism is often associated with an individual’s ability to accurately perceive other people’s perspectives and feelings.

Object permanence

Object permanence is the mental understanding that objects continue to exist within a space even if they are no longer there. 

Stereotypes

Stereotypes refer to beliefs widely shared by group members (e.g., women are emotional). Stereotypes often justify prejudice against certain groups, but they can also reflect how we perceive ourselves and others. For example, suppose an individual believes that all women are more emotional than men. In that case, this may influence how they treat women differently from men.

Anosognosia

Anosognosia is a neurological condition where people diagnosed with dementia experience relatively preserved cognitive abilities despite having severe deficits in reality testing and awareness of their deficits (i.e., subjective unawareness). These patients have been found to have reduced sensitivity to situations requiring behavioral control and reduced awareness of their deficits (i.e., anosognosia). 

Attribution bias 

This refers to the tendency to explain one’s behavior by attributing it to a character or quality of the self, as opposed to external factors. A person’s tendency to engage in attribution bias can be influenced by their beliefs about morality and social norms. For example, suppose a person believes that others will find them socially desirable and that their behavior is therefore socially desirable. In that case, this belief may cause them to act following this belief.

Deindividuation

It refers to the reduction of individual distinctiveness, which occurs when individuals are part of a group. People in groups tend to lose their identities and become more like members of their group than themselves. This can cause people to behave in ways that they would not usually behave if they were alone.

Subliminal messages

These messages are below someone’s awareness threshold but still can affect them even though they do not know what influenced them. Subliminal messages are typically used for advertising or promotion purposes where advertisements might be shown for only 1/50th of a second so that they cannot be consciously detected but still affect people subconsciously. For example, seeing something like “Vitamin C” in an advertisement

False consensus effect

The false consensus effect is the tendency for people to overestimate how much others agree with them. It’s also known as the “majority rule” bias: People tend to believe that others agree with them on a particular issue when few others do.

Confabulation

Confabulation is making up stories or memories after an event has occurred. Confabulators can’t remember what happened, but they have good imaginations and come up with plausible explanations for events they don’t remember happening.

Confirmation bias

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one’s preexisting beliefs or hypotheses. It can manifest as selective exposure to facts and evidence, selective interpretation of facts and evidence, an unwillingness to acknowledge alternative theories or explanations, and a willingness to ignore disconfirming evidence (see cognitive dissonance).

Cognitive dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is the psychological term coined by Leon Festinger in 1957 to describe the feelings of tension people experience when they hold inconsistent ideas. The theory posits that people will seek to reduce this tension by altering their beliefs. Hence, they are consistent with their actions.

Dunning-Kruger Effect

Dunning-Kruger Effect is the phenomenon whereby those who are incompetent at something tend to overestimate their ability relative to others, thus leading them to assume that they are more competent than they are. This leads them to engage in behaviors that confirm this belief without demonstrating competence.

Fundamental attribution error

Fundamental attribution error explains why we don’t take responsibility for our successes or failures: we tend to attribute them entirely to external circumstances such as luck, chance, and situational factors rather than internal qualities like talent or effort.

Halo effect

When one positive characteristic about something (or someone) affects our evaluation of it for better or worse.

Hindsight Bias

When we believe after an event that we would have seen it coming, all signs pointed to a different outcome.

Placebo effect

When subjects experience improvement after taking a pill they think it is medicine, despite it being a sugar pill.

Observer bias (or experimenter bias)

When researchers unconsciously influence the results of their studies due to their expectations of what the study will discover.

Self-fulfilling prophecy

A belief that causes behavior that fulfills what we thought would happen in the first place.