Have you ever wondered why advertisement exists? Why we see so many ads everywhere? Do you wonder if advertisement actually works? It seems that everyday we see more and more ads. We get bombarded by the amount of ads we see on the TV, on newspapers and on the Internet. What we need to understand is that...

Are stereotypes good or bad? Why do we use them? Does everyone create stereotypes? Stereotypes are mental frameworks that generally function as schemas and are useful for organizing, interpreting, and retrieving information. Stereotypes are sustained due to our tendency to minimize cognitive efforts....

Did you shop on Black Friday? Do you wonder why people are so crazy about shopping during that day? As I watched the news about shoppers the day after Thanksgiving, I wonder why people act so carelessly. There is plenty of footage showing people camping overnight at the stores or trampling people just...

Have you ever stopped to think how important is your gender? Do you know how strong of an influence gender has on your identity? You may think that those questions are redundant and their answers are obvious. Not quite! First of all, we need to differentiate the terms sex and gender. Many people confuse...

Have you ever wondered what people think of you? Do they see you as the person you want to be seen? Many of us would love to find out what people think of us. We have this image of ourselves and we want people to match that same view. Many of us attribute values and adjectives to our personality. We...

Have you ever heard the saying, “Beauty is only skin deep?” What about the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover?” Truth be told, those sayings are not accurate. Physical attractiveness is a major determinant in judging the liking of an individual. Psychological studies...

Rudy, Seabiscuit, Cinderella Man.  What do these things have in common? All of them are great comeback stories. We all love to cheer for an underdog. They are the proverbial David and Goliath. Have you ever asked yourself, “why do we like to root for the underdog?“. Social psychologists...

Are you superstitious? If you break a mirror, will it bring you seven years of bad luck? Do you rub a gold wedding band to cure a sty? We are always thinking that we have absolute control over the physical world. Most times, we try to make sense of what happens around us and attempt to predict it. Like...

Are you happy when it’s your birthday? Why do we celebrate Birthdays and why is it so important to us? Birthdays are celebrated everyday and everywhere. From China to North America, birthdays are milestones that are celebrated in everyone’s life. While the festivities are different, the...

Have you ever noticed how many different unspoken rules we have about space? In every different situation we have a different set of rules. Who came up with the distance between an ATM user and the person waiting to use it? I know it’s not the same rule for two strangers in a elevator. What about...