psychology

February 2, 2021
October 13, 2022

Psychology Trivia: We Need Stories to Memorize

Time exists because of the story memory technique As I wrote before, the definition of “time” is not completely settled in physics and philosophy. To be more precise, the existence of time is often an obstacle to prove the laws of physics. Apparently, it is doubtful in physics. Recently, I read an article by a neuroscientist. It said we felt the existence of time because we memorize as stories all sorts of things that happen in our lives. The story memory technique itself has long been known. The most famous one would be the memory palace method. Although I couldn’t understand even a half of the article, unfortunately, it has reinforced one of my beliefs: we need stories to live. Significant objects I suppose the famous marketing research “Significant Objects” is an example to show an aspect related to this human nature. It’s an experiment devised by Rob Walker and […]

January 26, 2021
January 1, 2023

Psychology Trivia: We Can’t Be Free from Confirmation Bias

There is no fate but confirmation bias I sometimes hear people say “This is fate!” but in most cases, they just got it all wrong. According to my speculation, most of us feel a sense of destiny when we decide to buy something, especially when it’s big-ticket items such as houses and cars. We may happen to see some articles saying “Now is the best time to buy!” Or we may remember our horoscopes we saw in some magazine. No offense, but there’s no such destiny in our buying behavior. It’s confirmation bias. Me? Of course, always biased, the same as before. I have been trading stocks for years. In most cases when I place orders, I feel like I found secret signs that only a genius can see. Guess what happened next? I stopped facing the reality (the decreasing balance of my brokerage account). Be wary of confirmation bias. […]

January 18, 2021
October 15, 2022

Heros Are Ordinary People Who Make Themselves Extraordinary

Status quo bias Have you ever experienced the Japanese commuter rush in the morning? No? Lucky you. While living in Tokyo, I had endured the cruel treatment every morning for more than three years. On the platform of any station in Japan, door positions are marked up. Seeing long queues at the marks on the platform, morning commuters sigh at the thought of a great trip ahead. Strangely enough, people in respective morning commute queues were always almost the same. Me? Yes, always in the same queue without a rational reason. I don’t think other people also would have had a particular reason. Every morning, the usual faces in my queue reminded me that I was firmly caught up in the status quo bias. It seems human beings really dislike changes. Today, I didn’t mean to criticize from a height, saying “You should change,” but try to defend the human […]

January 4, 2021
October 12, 2022

Japanese Culture and Traditions: Tidy Up to Spark Joy!

The scent of the Sun I was so surprised when learning that it is prohibited to hang the laundry outside in some places overseas. We, Japanese people really like to hang the laundry under the sun light. Japanese climate of high humidity is said to be the main reason of it. Recently, more washing machines come to have a drying function. Even so, most Japanese people would still prefer hanging the laundry outside, saying they like to smell the scent of the sun. I completely agree. The scent of towels and bed linen hung outside reminds me of younger days in bright summer. However, there’s one thing I can’t abide about washing. It’s folding the laundry. What is the point of it all? We have to unfold clothes to put them on. It seems irrational, meaningless, and a waste of time. To fold or not to fold My above statement […]

December 15, 2020
October 25, 2022

Worker Ant Theory: There’re No Useless Things

Viruses are not organisms Did you know that viruses are not organisms? The super-simple definition of an organism is an object consisting of a cell (cells) and self-replicating. In other words, viruses are a good counter-example to organisms. I learned it only after the COVID pandemic started. By the way, the above definition of an organism is just my personal interpretation, though. The point I try to make here is it seems much more difficult to define an organism than we imagine. Now, can you guess how this story is related to the title of this article? When I learned this surprising fact (viruses are not organisms), a counter-example came up in my mind. Opposite to viruses, something that is never thought to be but behaves like an organism. It’s an organization, a group of people. As some of you may have already noticed, today’s theme is especially about a […]

November 10, 2020
October 13, 2022

Psychology Trivia: The Measure of Intelligence Is the Ability to Change

What is the standard of beauty? Modesty is such a holy word in Japan. We hardly ever hear people brag about even their relatives, not to mention themselves. It is considered as a virtue to be modest or humble. However, the magic of love or the curse of youthfulness seems to drive us crazy sometimes. When I was a college student, there was a friend who boasted a lot about his girlfriend. He always said “She is gorgeous and looks like XXX (actress name I forgot).” One day, I saw him walk with the girlfriend. It was the first time for me to see her. She was just different from what I imagined from what he had said to me. Since then, human evaluation criteria especially in beauty has been in my research list. As I wrote before an article about beauty, this article is a little different from the […]