Psychology Simplified

  Nightline, Mind, Samaritans, CALM, CALL… do they ring a bell (no pun intended)? These are mainly listening services provided by volunteers to other individuals who feel troubled, generally. A kind of psychological breather, for the one who feels choked due to any reason under the sky. So, what are they worried about? Well, there could be emotional issues like a break-up, peer pressure, high expectations or ones with academic roots, financial woes or a physical ailment. If the person often feels sad or loses interest in leisure activities, or in life, they could be experiencing a mild, moderate, or severe form of  depression . It is actually alarming that every 4 th  student reports symptoms of depression, and every 10 th  one gets thoughts of committing suicide. Hence the relevance of such initiatives, to reduce the mood disorder.  It is important to know that one of the causes of depression is cognitive in nature. It means, depression commences ...

Whenever my parents attended a Parent Teacher Meeting when I was a child, I often heard my teachers appreciate me for my virtuous behaviour, but simultaneously add, “Oh! she is very quiet . Doesn’t talk much. Not very interactive. You must get her to speak more .” In the Primary School, I do remember Mom prodding me to raise my hand and speak up in class, to be assertive, get out of my shell or make more friends. Most teachers and parents are plagued with ‘ extrovert expectation’ . Does any of it sound familiar to you? Welcome to the Introvert Club, we comprise 25 to 40% of the population! Introverts are majorly inward-looking individuals who focus more on internal thoughts, feelings, emotions, instead of external motivation. And let’s get this straight that intraversion is just like any other personality trait—nothing to be ashamed of, and it’s definitely not a weakness to be overcome. The shift happened when I was in Middle School. A teacher again complained about me being an ...

“I tried explaining everything all over again, but I felt defeated and lost all hope as I had exceeded the time limit, and the judges shook their heads disapprovingly and looked disappointed, alas, I couldn’t finish my speech and couldn’t put forth my point due to a few mispronounced words.” I guess, everyone can agree that they have been misunderstood by others, and have misunderstood others’ statements as well at least once in their lives, but the important point here is that nobody is perfect. The schema that one creates after receiving a piece of information can change or cloud their perception of logic, which can be the consequence of various cognitive, perceptual, and motivational biases that systematically distort human judgment and inference which in turn creates misunderstandings, and can lead to intrapersonal and interpersonal conflicts. Attention bias at the end of the receiver can influence the misunderstanding as people may end up interpretation of just part of what...

I came to this world on 22nd February 2001 as a lovely little kid. I was an apple of the eye for my parents who used to ogle at me all the time as I was a chubby little girl. I had a funny speech which included words like A2, Pepsi, Yaiya etc. I had my own world in the form of my imaginations, I used to wonder about various things and used to create mental images of what most people used to think in terms of words. I still have this imagination which makes me look at the things in my world quite vividly.