Friday Fun: Michael's Favorite Posts of 2011

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This year has been a wonderful ride for Psych Your Mind. We've had over 130 entries since the blog started in mid March of last year. In that short time, our fearless team of bloggers has covered nearly every topic from almost every angle! Looking back on our year, I thought I'd spotlight my favorite posts. These weren't necessarily the most-read posts, but they were definitely must-reads!



Why you might not like when others like you 
When I taught personality psychology in the Fall of last year my students were fascinated by the idea that sometimes we may actually prefer people to see us negatively. The reason? A desire to be known and understood by others called self-verification. In this post, Anna described the fundamental motives that lead some people to prefer negative evaluations of themselves. In essence, if you see me how I see myself, I can manage your expectations for my future behavior, and my perceptions of the world remain stable and coherent as a result. Self-verification is a theoretical window into depression and into negative self-perceptions in close relationships. I highly recommend reading on here!

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Psychology Songs
This one is one of Juli's clever posts linking psychology to pop culture. In this post, Juli lists a whole bunch of popular song titles and accompanies this list with the psychological phenomenon that the song is about. Interested in some examples to get the juices flowing? If you are interested in a song about self-esteem then you're covered by Radiohead's Creep (low) or Christina Aguilera's Beautiful (high). Altruism? Then your song is Give a Little Love by Ziggy Marley. Interested in the Nature v. Nurture debate? Then Lady Gaga's Born This Way is your song. Check out the full post here!


The Sleep Cycle: What's really going on while you're catching your ZZZ's?
If you ever want to be up on one of the cutting-edge topics in psychology, read Amie's piece on the sleep cycle! Sleep is one of the uncharted territories in psychology, and yet, we all do it for huge chunks of time everyday. In this post, Amie talks about the sleep cycle, answers questions about sleep as we age, and answers the question "should we nap?" This whole post is worth a read from top to bottom, so make sure you go in and read that sucker here!

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The Probability of Your Existence: Basically Zero
If you had a guess, what would you say is the probability that you turned out exactly the way you are right now? With all the little events and unknown aspects of life, it's reasonable to assume that your chances of turning out exactly as you are now are basically zero! Juli's post discusses this unlikely probability and then some potential emotional reactions to us being as unique as we are. Definitely worth the read here!


What was your favorite post this year? Let us know in the comments!



Kwang T, & Swann WB Jr (2010). Do people embrace praise even when they feel unworthy? A review of critical tests of self-enhancement versus self-verification. Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc, 14 (3), 263-80 PMID: 20435799