Psychology & Behavioral Science & Cognitive Effects

Social & Cognitive Effects

• Pratfall Effect: Making mistakes or showing vulnerability makes people more relatable and likable, as it shows their humanity.

• Ben Franklin Effect: People are more likely to do a favor for you if they have already done a favor for you before (rather than if you did a favor for them).

• Barnum Effect: People accept vague, general personality statements as accurate for themselves.

• Dunning-Kruger Effect: People with low ability tend to overestimate their competence; high performers often underestimate their abilities.

• Confirmation Bias: We prioritize and remember information that confirms our pre-existing beliefs.

• Fundamental Attribution Error: We overestimate personality and underestimate the situation when explaining others’ actions.

• Availability Heuristic: People overestimate the likelihood of rare, memorable events due to how easily examples come to mind (e.g., plane crashes).

• Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon: After noticing or learning about something new, you start seeing it everywhere.

• Zeigarnik Effect: Unfinished or interrupted tasks are remembered better than completed ones.

• Social Facilitation: Presence of others improves performance on simple/familiar tasks and worsens it on complex/new ones.

• Bystander Effect: Individuals are less likely to help in emergencies if others are present, expecting someone else to act.

Emotions, Relationships & Self-Perception

• Interpersonal Deception Theory: Deception is interactive and adaptive; both sender and receiver influence the outcome with ongoing adjustments.

• Spontaneous Trait Transference: The traits you describe in others get unconsciously attributed to you (if you call others kind, people may see you as kind).

• Impostor Syndrome: High-achievers feel like frauds, doubting their abilities despite evidence of success.

• Illusion of Transparency: People overestimate the degree others can "see" their thoughts or feelings.

• Pygmalion Effect: High expectations from others can lead to improved performance.

• Cognitive Appraisal: Your emotional response to situations depends on how you interpret and evaluate them.

• Prolonged Eye Contact: Can increase trust and connection; avoiding eye contact can signal discomfort or lack of confidence.

• Procrastination & Emotions: Often a way of coping with negative feelings rather than just poor time management.

Learning & Memory

• Spacing Effect: Information is better retained when reviewed over spaced intervals.

• Production Effect: We're more likely to remember material if we read it out loud.

• Doorway Effect: Walking through a doorway often causes us to forget what we were intending to do, as the brain sets a "context reset" at boundaries.

• Smell & Memory: Scents are closely tied to memory and emotion, often triggering vivid recollection.

Hormones, Biology & Behaviors

• Facial Feedback Hypothesis: Facial expressions can influence our emotions (smiling can make you feel happier).

• Oxytocin & Hugging: Physical touch like hugging releases oxytocin ("cuddle hormone"), promoting bonding and stress reduction.

• Blushing: When you blush, not only does your face turn red but so does your stomach lining.

• Yawning: Helps regulate brain temperature and can be socially contagious.

• Prefrontal Cortex Development: Responsible for decision-making/impulse control; not fully matured until about age 25.

Perception & Decision-Making

• Decoy Effect: Adding a third, less-attractive option makes one of the other choices more appealing.

• Uncanny Valley: Human-like objects that aren’t quite realistic can evoke feelings of unease.

• Diderot Effect: New possessions can trigger a cycle of more consumption to "fit" with what you already have.

• Peak-End Rule: We judge experiences based on how they felt at the peak and the end, not the overall average.

• Law 1 from "48 Laws of Power": "Never Outshine the Master." Don’t appear more competent than your superiors.

• Pattern Recognition: Our brains are wired to detect patterns in data, essential for learning and predicting.

• Color Red: Increases arousal and stimulates appetite; commonly used in food branding.

• Cocktail Party Effect: Ability to focus on one conversation in a noisy environment but still notice personally relevant cues (like your name).

• Brain Drain Effect: Just having your smartphone nearby (even off) can reduce cognitive performance.

Famous Experiments & Concepts

• Little Albert Experiment: Demonstrated how fear could be conditioned in humans (baby conditioned to fear rats).

• Mirror-Touch Synesthesia: Some people physically feel sensations when seeing others touched—a rare form of empathy.

• Deindividuation: In group settings, individuals may lose self-identity and act more impulsively or deviate from personal norms.

• Sarcasm and Cognition: Understanding sarcasm demonstrates mental flexibility and verbal intelligence.

• Being in Love & OCD: Brain chemistry for being in love and in obsessive-compulsive disorder can be similar (lower serotonin transporter).

Miscellaneous Phenomena

• People prefer to change facts than change their views about people.

• People often underestimate the time needed to complete tasks (planning fallacy).

• Multitasking reduces productivity due to the mental cost of switching tasks.

• Hindsight Bias: Tendency to see past events as predictable only after they’ve occurred.

• Ramadan & Mood: Fasting can boost serotonin, sometimes improving mood and mental well-being.