psychology - Concepts

Explore concepts tagged with "psychology"

Total concepts: 338

Concepts

10-10-10 Rule - A decision-making framework that evaluates choices by considering how you will feel about them in 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years.
85 Percent Rule - Optimal learning and performance occur when operating at about 85% effort or accuracy.
Action Bias - The tendency to favor action over inaction, even when doing nothing would produce better outcomes.
Activation Energy (Psychology) - The initial effort required to start a behavior, determining likelihood of action.
Activation Energy - The initial mental and physical effort required to start a task, borrowed from chemistry as a productivity metaphor.
Acute Stress - Short-term stress response to immediate challenges or threats that resolves when the situation passes.
ADHD - A disorder of self-regulation affecting attention control and inhibitory functions.
ADKAR Model - A change management framework: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement.
Adversity Paradox - The counterintuitive finding that facing challenges and hardships can lead to greater growth, resilience, and success.
Affect Heuristic - Making judgments based on current emotions rather than objective analysis.
Aha Moment - The sudden moment of insight when understanding or a solution clicks into place.
Akrasia - Acting against one's better judgment - knowing what's best but doing otherwise.
Amygdala - The brain's emotional processing center, responsible for detecting threats and triggering fear responses.
Analysis Paralysis - Overthinking a decision to the point of taking no action.
Anchoring Bias - Over-relying on the first piece of information encountered.
Anchoring - The cognitive bias where people rely heavily on the first piece of information they encounter.
Anxiety - A state of worry, unease, or fear about uncertain future events, ranging from normal to clinical levels.
Arrival Fallacy - The false belief that reaching a goal will bring lasting happiness and fulfillment.
Attention Residue - The mental carry-over effect where thoughts from a previous task linger and interfere with focus on a new task.
Attention Restoration - The recovery of focused attention capacity through exposure to restorative environments.
Attention Span - The length of time one can concentrate on a task without becoming distracted.
Attention Types - The two fundamental categories of attention: directed (goal-driven) and stimulated (stimulus-driven).
Attentional Blink - A brief period after noticing one stimulus during which a second stimulus is likely missed.
Attentional Process - The cognitive mechanisms that control what information we select, focus on, and process.
Authority Bias - The tendency to attribute greater accuracy to the opinion of an authority figure.
Availability Cascade - A self-reinforcing cycle where a belief gains credibility simply because it is repeated and widely discussed.
Availability Heuristic - Judging likelihood based on how easily examples come to mind.
Bandwagon Effect - The tendency to adopt behaviors or beliefs because many others do.
Base Rate Neglect - The tendency to ignore general statistical information in favor of specific case details when making judgments.
Behavioral Activation - A therapeutic approach focusing on engaging in meaningful activities to improve mood and break depression cycles.
Behavioral Contagion - The spread of behaviors through social groups, where observing others influences actions.
Belief in Belief - A cognitive situation where your stated beliefs conflict with your actual actions and expectations.
Belief System Defenses - The subconscious or conscious creation of narratives to protect our beliefs and self-image.
Bias Blind Spot - The cognitive bias of recognizing biases in others while failing to see them in oneself.
Bikeshedding - The tendency to spend disproportionate time on trivial matters while leaving important issues unattended.
Bottom-Up Attention - Attention captured automatically by salient stimuli in the environment.
Bounded Rationality - The idea that decision-making is limited by cognitive constraints, available information, and time rather than being perfectly rational.
Bright Lines - Clear, absolute rules that eliminate decision-making and reduce temptation.
Broken Windows Theory - Small signs of disorder lead to more disorder if not addressed.
Buffer Hypothesis - The theory that social support protects against the harmful effects of stress.
Buridan's Ass - A philosophical paradox illustrating decision paralysis when faced with two equally attractive choices.
Burnout Phases - The twelve progressive stages from excessive ambition to complete physical and mental collapse.
Burnout - A state of chronic physical and emotional exhaustion caused by prolonged stress and overwork.
Catastrophizing - A cognitive distortion involving irrational thoughts that something is far worse than it actually is.
Change Blindness - Failure to notice changes in visual scenes, especially during disruptions or when attention is elsewhere.
Character Strengths - The VIA classification of 24 positive personality traits organized under six core virtues.
Choice Overload - When too many options leads to difficulty deciding and reduced satisfaction.
Chronic Stress - Prolonged activation of the stress response without adequate recovery, causing cumulative damage.
Clustering Illusion - Seeing patterns in random data, such as 'hot streaks' in random sequences.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) - A psychological treatment that helps change unhelpful thinking patterns and behaviors.
Cognitive Defusion - Creating distance from thoughts to reduce their impact on behavior.
Cognitive Dissonance - The mental discomfort from holding contradictory beliefs or behaving inconsistently with beliefs.
Cognitive Distortions - Systematic patterns of biased thinking that negatively distort our perception of reality.
Cognitive Fusion - Being trapped by thoughts, treating them as literal truths rather than mental events.
Cognitive Load - The mental effort required to process information or complete tasks.
Cognitive Offloading - Using external tools or the environment to reduce mental effort and extend cognitive capacity.
Cognitive Reappraisal - Reframing a situation to change its emotional impact.
Coherence Bias - The tendency to construct consistent narratives even when reality is more complex.
Collector's Fallacy - The trap of collecting information without processing or using it.
Comfort Zone - A psychological state where activities feel familiar, routine, and safe, often limiting growth.
Commitment and Consistency - The psychological drive to align our actions and beliefs with our prior commitments and self-image.
Compassion Fatigue - Emotional and physical exhaustion from caring for others in distress, reducing capacity for empathy.
Confirmation Bias - The tendency to favor information that confirms existing beliefs.
Constructivism - A learning theory where learners actively construct knowledge through experience rather than passively receiving it.
Context Switching - The mental cost of shifting attention between different tasks.
Core Human Drives - Five fundamental motivations that drive all human behavior: the drives to Acquire, Bond, Learn, Defend, and Feel.
Counterfactual Thinking - Imagining alternative scenarios and 'what might have been' to learn from past decisions and improve future ones.
Curiosity Gap - A content technique that creates intrigue by hinting at valuable information without fully revealing it.
Curse of Knowledge - The cognitive bias where experts assume others share their knowledge, making it hard to explain things simply.
Dark Triad - A personality constellation encompassing three socially aversive traits: narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism.
Deadline Effect - The phenomenon of increased productivity and focus as deadlines approach.
Decision Fatigue - The deteriorating quality of decisions after making many decisions.
Decisional Balance - A psychological technique for systematically weighing the pros and cons of making a change.
Decoy Effect - Adding an inferior option makes another option more attractive by comparison.
Default Effect - The power of pre-set options - people disproportionately stick with defaults.
Default Mode Network - A brain network active during rest and mind-wandering, associated with self-reflection and creativity.
Delayed Gratification - The ability to resist immediate rewards in favor of larger future benefits.
Depression - A mood disorder characterized by persistent sadness, loss of interest, and various cognitive and physical symptoms.
Desirable Difficulties - Learning challenges that slow initial performance but enhance long-term retention.
Distress - Negative stress that overwhelms coping ability and harms wellbeing and performance.
Divided Attention - Attempting to focus on multiple tasks or stimuli simultaneously, usually with reduced performance.
Dual Coding Theory - The theory that cognition processes verbal and visual information through separate systems.
Duck Syndrome - Appearing calm on the surface while frantically struggling underneath, common in high-pressure environments.
Dukkha - The Buddhist concept of suffering, dissatisfaction, and the unsatisfactoriness of conditioned existence.
Dunning-Kruger Effect - Cognitive bias where novices overestimate and experts underestimate their abilities.
Effort Justification - A cognitive bias where people value outcomes more when they required significant effort to achieve.
Ego Depletion - The theory that self-control and willpower draw from a limited mental resource that gets depleted.
Einstellung Effect - The tendency to apply familiar solutions even when better alternatives exist.
Emotional Burnout - A nervous system breakdown caused by accumulated emotional stress and pressure.
Emotional Contagion - The automatic transmission of emotions between people through social interaction.
Emotional Control - The ability to manage and regulate emotional responses to situations.
Emotional Granularity - The ability to make fine-grained distinctions between similar emotions, using precise emotional vocabulary.
Emotional Intelligence - The ability to recognize, understand, and manage emotions in yourself and others.
Emotional Regulation - The ability to manage and respond to emotional experiences in adaptive, healthy ways.
Encoding Specificity - Memory retrieval is better when the context at recall matches the context during learning.
Encoding - The process of converting information into memory traces.
Endowment Effect - Overvaluing things simply because we own them.
Environment Design - Shaping your physical and digital surroundings to make desired behaviors easier and unwanted behaviors harder.
Episodic Memory - Long-term memory for personal experiences and specific events with their context.
Eustress - Positive stress that motivates, focuses energy, and improves performance.
Extrinsic Motivation - Motivation driven by external factors like rewards, pressure, and consequences.
Failure Acceptance - Acknowledging failure without excessive self-criticism while maintaining motivation to improve.
Failure as Identity - The harmful transformation of failure from an action (I failed) into an identity (I am a failure).
Failure Attribution - The explanations people create for why failures occurred, affecting learning and future behavior.
Failure Mindset - A perspective that views failure as necessary feedback and opportunity rather than defeat.
Failure Recovery - The process of bouncing back from failures while maintaining confidence and momentum.
Failure Tolerance - The capacity to accept and learn from failures without excessive negative response.
Fast and Frugal Heuristics - Simple decision rules that use minimal information yet often outperform complex analysis in uncertain environments.
Fawn Response - A trauma response of people-pleasing and appeasing to avoid conflict and create safety.
Fear of Failure - The emotional response that prevents risk-taking due to concern about negative outcomes.
Feedback Loops of Encouragement and Discouragement - Early encouragement breeds confidence and success, while discouragement creates risk aversion and reduces confidence.
Feedforward Effect - People are more inclined to take action when they know what to expect beforehand.
Fighting Recency Bias - Strategies to counteract the tendency to overweight recent information in decisions.
Flow Blockers - Conditions and behaviors that prevent entering or maintaining flow states.
Flow State - The state of complete immersion in an activity with effortless focus.
Flow Triggers - Conditions and practices that increase the likelihood of entering flow states.
Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) - Anxiety that others are having rewarding experiences you're missing.
Forgetting is a Form of Learning - Forgetting helps the brain filter irrelevant information and strengthens memory through retrieval practice.
Forgetting Curve - The exponential decay of memory retention over time.
Four Stages of Competence - A learning model describing the psychological states from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence.
Framing Effect - How the presentation of information affects decision-making.
Freeze Response - The immobilization response to overwhelming threat when fight or flight seems impossible.
Fresh Start Effect - The increased motivation to pursue goals following temporal landmarks that mark new beginnings.
Friendship Paradox - On average, your friends have more friends than you do.
Fundamental Attribution Error - Overemphasizing personality and underemphasizing situational factors when explaining others' behavior.
Future Discounting - Valuing future outcomes less than equivalent present outcomes, often to an irrational degree.
Gambler's Fallacy - The mistaken belief that past random events affect future probabilities.
Generation Effect - Information is better remembered when generated than when merely read.
Getting Started Problem - The specific challenge of initiating work, often harder than the work itself.
Glucksshuld - The guilt one feels at one's own good fortune - the inverse of Schadenfreude.
Goal Gradient Effect - The tendency to increase effort as we approach a goal.
Gratitude and Happiness - The research-supported relationship between gratitude practice and increased wellbeing.
Gratitude and Resilience - How gratitude practice builds psychological resilience and aids recovery from adversity.
Gratitude Benefits - The psychological, physical, and social advantages that result from practicing gratitude.
Gratitude Journal - A practice of regularly recording things you're grateful for.
Gratitude Mindset - A habitual perspective that notices and appreciates the positive aspects of experiences.
Gratitude Practice - Intentional activities designed to cultivate and express appreciation for life's positives.
Gratitude Reciprocity - The relationship between experiencing gratitude and engaging in reciprocal or generous behavior.
Gratitude Science - The research field studying the causes, effects, and mechanisms of gratitude.
Grounding - Techniques that bring attention to the present moment and body, reducing overwhelm and anxiety.
Growth Mindset - The belief that abilities can be developed through effort and learning.
Gut Feeling - Intuitive knowledge that emerges from experience without conscious reasoning.
Habit Loop - The neurological loop of cue, routine, and reward that underlies all habit formation.
Habit Stacking - Linking new habits to existing ones to leverage established neural pathways.
Habitus - Bourdieu's concept of deeply ingrained habits, skills, and dispositions acquired through life experience.
Halo Effect - A cognitive bias where positive impressions in one area influence perceptions in unrelated areas.
Happiness Equation - The formula H = S + C + V suggesting happiness comes from set-point, conditions, and voluntary activities.
Happiness Set Point - The baseline level of happiness to which individuals tend to return over time.
Hedonic Adaptation - The tendency to return to baseline happiness levels despite major positive or negative changes.
Hedonic Treadmill - The tendency to return to a baseline level of happiness despite positive or negative events.
Helper's High - The positive emotional and physical response experienced when helping others.
Hick's Law - Decision time increases logarithmically with the number of choices available.
Hindsight Bias - The tendency to see past events as having been predictable.
Hippocampus - The brain region essential for forming new memories and spatial navigation.
Hot-Cold Empathy Gap - The difficulty of predicting how we'll feel or act when in a different emotional state.
Hot-Hand Fallacy - Believing that a person who has experienced success has a greater chance of further success.
Hyperbolic Discounting - Preferring smaller immediate rewards over larger future rewards.
Identity-Based Habits - Changing behavior by focusing on who you want to become, not what you want to achieve.
Identity Capital - Investments in who you are becoming - skills, experiences, and credentials that build identity.
IKEA Effect - Placing disproportionately high value on things we partially created ourselves.
Illusion of Control - Believing we can control or influence outcomes that we actually cannot.
Implementation Intentions - A planning strategy using if-then statements to specify when, where, and how you will perform a behavior.
Impostor Syndrome - Persistent self-doubt and feeling like a fraud despite evidence of competence.
In-Group Bias - Favoring members of one's own group over outsiders.
Inattentional Blindness - Failure to notice unexpected stimuli when attention is focused elsewhere.
Indecision Is a Decision - Recognizing that not deciding is itself a choice with real consequences.
Information Anxiety - The stress and discomfort caused by the gap between what we know and what we feel we should know.
Information Hoarding - Compulsively collecting information without processing or using it.
Information Overload - Having too much information to process effectively.
Infovore - A person with an insatiable appetite for information, constantly seeking new knowledge and data.
Inner Critic - The internal voice of harsh self-judgment and negative self-evaluation.
Instant Gratification Syndrome - The tendency to prefer immediate rewards over larger delayed rewards.
Intellectual Quotient (IQ) - A measure of cognitive ability and problem-solving skills, often called raw intelligence.
Intention-Action Gap - The difference between what people intend to do and what they actually do.
Interoception - The sense of the internal state of the body, including signals like hunger, temperature, and heart rate.
Intrinsic Motivation - Internal drive from enjoyment and satisfaction rather than external rewards.
Just Noticeable Difference - The minimum change in a stimulus required for detection, with implications for change.
Keystone Habits - Habits that trigger a cascade of positive changes across multiple areas of life when established.
Kintsugi Mindset - Embracing brokenness as part of beauty, inspired by the Japanese art of golden repair.
Knowledge Makes Us Jaded - The phenomenon where accumulated knowledge reveals flaws, shortcomings, and gaps that we cannot unsee, making us critical of work that once seemed impressive.
Learned Helplessness - A psychological state where repeated failures lead to giving up even when success becomes possible.
Learning Curve - The rate of improvement in performing a task as experience accumulates.
Limbic System - The brain's emotional processing center, responsible for emotions, memories, and arousal.
Limiting Beliefs - Self-imposed mental constraints that hold you back from reaching your potential.
Locus of Control - A psychological concept describing whether people believe outcomes are controlled by themselves (internal) or by external forces like fate, luck, or others (external).
Logotherapy - A psychotherapy approach centered on finding meaning as the primary motivational force in life.
Loss Aversion - The pain of losing is psychologically stronger than the pleasure of gaining.
Make Peace with the Past - The practice of releasing grudges, regrets, and unresolved issues to prevent them from negatively affecting your present well-being and future growth.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - A psychological theory organizing human needs into a five-tier pyramid, from basic survival needs to self-actualization, where lower-level needs must be satisfied before higher ones can be pursued.
Matthew Effect - The rich get richer phenomenon where early advantages compound over time.
Mental Accounting - The tendency to treat money differently based on subjective categories.
Mental Contrasting - A goal-pursuit strategy that alternates between envisioning desired outcomes and confronting obstacles that stand in the way.
Mental Energy - The cognitive resources available for thinking, deciding, and creating.
Mere Exposure Effect - The tendency to develop preferences for things simply because we are familiar with them.
Mere Measurement Effect - The phenomenon where asking about intentions increases the likelihood of those behaviors.
Mindfulness - Present-moment awareness of thoughts, feelings, and environment without judgment.
Mirror Neurons - Neurons that fire both when performing an action and when observing someone else perform the same action.
Motivation Through Action - Action generates motivation, not vice versa - starting creates the momentum to continue.
Mulder Effect - The tendency to believe extraordinary claims without sufficient evidence, named after the X-Files character.
Multiple Intelligences Theory - Howard Gardner's theory that intelligence comprises multiple distinct types rather than a single ability.
Multitasking - Attempting to perform multiple tasks simultaneously, which reduces effectiveness.
Narrative Fallacy - The tendency to create overly coherent stories from random or complex events.
Narrative Identity - The internalized story of the self that provides life with unity and purpose.
Negativity Bias - The tendency to give more weight to negative experiences than positive ones of equal intensity.
Nemo Propheta in Patria - No one is a prophet in their own land - expertise is often more valued by outsiders.
Nervous System Regulation - The ability to shift between activation and calm states, maintaining balance in the autonomic nervous system.
Neuroplasticity - The brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life.
Non-Judgmental Awareness - Observing experiences without labeling them as good or bad, right or wrong.
Novelty Bias - Disproportionate attraction to new information over established knowledge.
Obligation Principle - The psychological mechanism that creates feelings of debt and duty to repay after receiving.
Omission Bias - Judging harmful actions as worse than equally harmful inactions.
Open Loops - Incomplete tasks and unresolved commitments that occupy mental space.
Optimism Bias - The tendency to overestimate the likelihood of positive outcomes and underestimate negative ones.
Outcome Bias - Judging decisions by their outcomes rather than the quality of the decision-making process.
Overcoming Inertia - The challenge of starting is often the hardest step, but once in motion, momentum makes subsequent steps easier.
Overlapping Realities - Each person experiences a different version of reality based on their unique perspective.
Overton Window - The range of ideas considered politically acceptable at a given time.
Paradox of Choice - Having too many options leads to anxiety and decision paralysis.
Pattern of Procrastination (PoP) - A framework for understanding the recurring patterns and triggers behind procrastination.
Peak-End Rule - We judge experiences based on their most intense moment and how they end, not their average.
Peak Experiences - Maslow's concept of transcendent moments of profound joy, wonder, and meaning.
Perceptual Set - How expectations, experiences, and context influence what we perceive.
Perfectionism - The pursuit of flawlessness that can prevent progress and completion.
Performance Approach - Focusing on demonstrating competence and outperforming others rather than learning.
Planning Fallacy - The tendency to underestimate time, costs, and risks while overestimating benefits.
Polyvagal Theory - Stephen Porges' theory of a three-part nervous system hierarchy: social engagement, fight/flight, and freeze.
Positive Psychology - A field of psychology research that aims to understand how positivity can enable individuals, communities, and organizations to thrive.
Positive Self-Talk - Intentionally using supportive, encouraging internal dialogue to improve mindset and performance.
Post-Traumatic Growth - Positive psychological change that can emerge from struggling with highly challenging life circumstances.
Pre-Commitment - Making decisions in advance to avoid using willpower in the moment.
Pre-Mortem Analysis - A risk assessment technique that imagines a project has failed before it begins to identify potential causes of failure.
Preference Falsification - Misrepresenting one's preferences to conform to perceived social expectations.
Prefrontal Cortex - The brain region responsible for executive functions like planning, decision-making, and impulse control.
Present Bias - The tendency to disproportionately prefer immediate rewards over larger future rewards.
Price Anchoring - A pricing psychology technique where the first price shown influences perception of subsequent prices.
Procrastination Equation - The formula: Motivation = (Expectancy × Value) / (Impulsiveness × Delay).
Procrastination Types - Different patterns and causes of procrastination requiring different intervention strategies.
Progress Principle - The finding that making meaningful progress in work is the single most important factor in boosting motivation and engagement.
Prospect Theory - A behavioral economics framework showing that people value gains and losses asymmetrically, with losses hurting more than equivalent gains please.
Pseudo-Set Framing - Creating a set or sequence of tasks increases a person's likelihood of following through to completion.
Psychological Safety - The belief that one can speak up, take risks, and be vulnerable without fear of punishment or humiliation.
Psychology of Change - Understanding the mental and emotional processes people go through when facing personal or organizational change.
Psychology of Procrastination - Understanding the psychological patterns and causes behind why we procrastinate, from perfectionism to overwhelm.
Putting Thoughts on Trial - A CBT technique that systematically examines and challenges negative or distorted thoughts by evaluating the evidence for and against them.
Pygmalion Effect - Higher expectations lead to improved performance due to changed behavior toward those expected to succeed.
Radical Acceptance - Fully accepting reality as it is, without trying to change it or wishing it were different.
Radical Self-Acceptance - Fully accepting yourself - including flaws and limitations - without conditions or judgment.
RAIN Technique - A mindfulness practice for difficult emotions: Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture.
Reality-Perception Gap - Problems arise from conflicts between our expectations and our inherently incomplete, biased perception of reality.
Recency Bias - The tendency to overweight recent information in decision-making.
Reciprocity Bias - The cognitive tendency to feel obligated to return favors, even when disproportionate.
Reciprocity Principle - The social norm of responding to positive actions with positive actions in return.
Reciprocity Rule - The informal guideline to repay in kind what another person has provided.
Reciprocity - The social norm of responding to positive actions with positive actions.
Representativeness Heuristic - Judging probability by similarity to prototypes rather than by actual statistical likelihood.
Resilience - The capacity to recover from difficulties, adapt to change, and keep going in the face of adversity.
Resistance to Starting - The psychological barrier that makes beginning tasks more difficult than continuing them.
Retrieval - The process of accessing and bringing stored information into consciousness.
Role Stress - Stress from conflicting role expectations, ambiguous responsibilities, or role overload.
Rosy Retrospection - Remembering past events more positively than they actually were.
Rumination - Repetitive, passive thinking about negative emotions, their causes, and consequences without taking action.
Satisficing - A decision-making strategy of accepting a 'good enough' option rather than seeking the optimal solution.
Scarcity - The psychological principle that limited availability increases perceived value.
Schema Theory - A cognitive framework explaining how knowledge is organized in interconnected mental structures.
Scully Effect - The tendency to dismiss or ignore important discoveries because they seem mundane or boring.
The Second Arrow - A Buddhist parable teaching that while we cannot control external pain (the first arrow), we can choose not to inflict additional suffering on ourselves through our reactions (the second arrow).
Selective Attention - The cognitive process of focusing on specific stimuli while filtering out others.
Self-Actualization - Maslow's highest need - realizing your full potential and becoming the best version of yourself.
Self-Compassion - Treating yourself with the same kindness and understanding you would offer a good friend during difficult times.
Self-Discipline - The ability to do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.
Self-Efficacy - Your belief in your ability to succeed in specific situations or accomplish specific tasks.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy - A prediction that causes itself to become true through the expectation's influence.
Self-Regulation - The ability to control our own behavior and emotional responses, including calming ourselves when upset and adapting to changes.
Self-Sabotage - Unconscious behaviors and thought patterns that undermine your own success and goals.
Self-Serving Bias - Attributing successes to internal factors and failures to external factors.
Self-Transcendence - Going beyond self-interest to connect with something larger than oneself.
Semantic Memory - Long-term memory for facts, concepts, and general knowledge independent of personal experience.
Serotonin - A neurotransmitter that regulates mood, sleep, appetite, and feelings of well-being and contentment.
Shadow Side - The hidden, often unconscious aspects of personality we don't readily acknowledge.
Shadow Work - The process of exploring and integrating unconscious aspects of your personality.
Shiny Object Syndrome - The tendency to chase new tools and methods instead of mastering current ones.
Signal Detection Theory - A framework for understanding how we distinguish meaningful information (signal) from noise.
Signs of Perfectionism - Recognizing the warning signs that perfectionism is holding you back from progress and success.
Sitting with Discomfort - Building capacity to tolerate unpleasant experiences without immediately reacting or escaping.
Skeuomorphism - A design approach where digital elements mimic their real-world counterparts, making interfaces more intuitive and familiar.
Sleep Architecture - The structure and pattern of sleep stages that cycle throughout the night, each serving distinct functions.
Small Wins - Achieving incremental progress through manageable accomplishments to build momentum.
Social Exchange - A sociological theory viewing human relationships as involving exchange of resources and rewards.
Social Proof - The psychological tendency to follow the actions and choices of others.
Spatial Intelligence - The cognitive ability to think in three dimensions, visualize objects, and mentally manipulate spatial information.
Spotlight Effect - Overestimating how much others notice our appearance or behavior.
State-Dependent Learning - Information learned in one mental or physical state is better recalled in that same state.
Status Quo Bias - Preference for the current state of affairs over change.
Stoicism - An ancient philosophy teaching virtue, patience, and focusing on what you can control.
Stress Inoculation - Controlled exposure to manageable stress to build tolerance and coping skills for future challenges.
Stress Mindset - Your beliefs about stress - whether you view it as enhancing or debilitating - affects how it actually impacts you.
Stress Response - The body's automatic physiological and psychological reaction to perceived threats or demands.
Structured Procrastination - Using procrastination productively by working on important tasks while avoiding the most important one.
Subjective Wellbeing - A person's own evaluation of their life including emotional experiences and life satisfaction.
Success Breeds Confidence - Success creates confidence which leads to more success, while failure can damage confidence and create negativity.
Success Identity - Seeing yourself as someone who succeeds - identity-level belief in your capacity for achievement.
Sunk Cost Effect - The tendency to continue an endeavor because of past investment, regardless of future value.
Sunk Cost Fallacy - Continuing investments due to past costs that cannot be recovered.
Survivorship Bias - Focusing on successful examples while ignoring failures that didn't survive.
Task Initiation - The executive function skill of beginning tasks without excessive delay or procrastination.
Task Momentum - The tendency for ongoing work to continue more easily than starting or restarting.
Team Dynamics - The behavioral patterns and psychological forces that influence how teams function and perform.
Temporal Discounting - The behavioral economics concept of reduced valuation of rewards as they are delayed in time.
Temporal Landmarks - Significant dates that create psychological fresh starts and motivation for new behaviors.
Temporal Motivation Theory - A theory explaining how motivation changes based on the timing of rewards and costs.
Temptation Bundling - Pairing an activity you want to do with an activity you should do to make productive behaviors more enjoyable.
Tend and Befriend - A stress response alternative to fight-or-flight, especially common in women - nurturing and seeking social support.
Three Good Things - Reflecting on three positive events each day to build gratitude.
Time Blindness - Difficulty perceiving time accurately, common in ADHD and affecting planning.
Time Optimism - The tendency to underestimate how long tasks will take and overcommit future time.
Time Perception - Our subjective experience of time varies based on our emotional state, attention, and engagement level.
Time Perspective - An individual's habitual orientation toward past, present, or future that shapes behavior.
Time Scarcity Mindset - A mental framework that perceives time as perpetually insufficient, driving rushed behavior.
Top-Down Attention - Voluntary attention directed by goals, intentions, and conscious choice.
Trauma - A deeply distressing experience that overwhelms one's ability to cope, with lasting psychological effects.
Trigger-Routine-Reward - The three-part structure of habits: cue that triggers behavior, routine performed, and reward received.
Two-System Thinking - The mind operates through fast, intuitive System 1 and slow, deliberate System 2, each with distinct strengths and weaknesses.
Ulysses Contract - A pre-commitment device where you bind your future self to a decision made in a moment of clarity.
Unconscious Bias Training - Educational programs designed to help people recognize and reduce implicit biases.
Unlearning - The process of discarding outdated or incorrect knowledge and habits.
Urge Surfing - Riding out cravings or urges mindfully without acting on them, watching them rise and fall like waves.
Values and Beliefs - Values determine why we think and act, while beliefs dictate how we think and act.
Vicious Circle - A negative feedback loop where problems create conditions that worsen the problems.
Virtuous Circle - A positive feedback loop where success reinforces behaviors that lead to more success.
Willpower as Muscle - The model that willpower can be strengthened through exercise and depleted through use.
Window of Tolerance - The optimal zone of nervous system arousal where we can function effectively and cope with stress.
Winner Effect - Winning increases testosterone and confidence, improving chances of winning again.
Working Memory - The limited-capacity system for temporarily holding and manipulating information.
Writer's Block - The experience of being unable to write, often due to perfectionism, fear, or unclear thinking.
Yerkes-Dodson Law - Performance increases with arousal up to a point, then decreases with too much arousal.
Zeigarnik Effect - The tendency to remember uncompleted tasks better than completed ones.
Zero-Risk Bias - Preferring to eliminate a small risk entirely over a greater reduction of a larger risk.
Zone of Proximal Development - The gap between what a learner can do alone and what they can achieve with guidance.

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