We all experience stress, right? But does the kind of person we are have an impact on how we experience that stress? McCrae & Costa (1987) originally defined 5 personality dimensions on which every individual’s personality can be measured via the NEO-PI-R test: OPENNESS, CONSCIENTIOUSNESS, EXTROVERSION, AGREEABLENESS and NEUROTICISM. The type of personality we inhabit […]
Cognition
Identifying, Categorising and Recognising
We often take it for granted, don’t we? How we see something and instantly know what it is. But there’s some clever science behind it and during my MSc I conducted an experiment to demonstrate how some of it works. Prototype theory (Rosch & Mervis, 1975) aims to explain how we recognise and identify the […]
Everyday mind-reading – the theory
Attribution is the process by which someone decides why an event occurred. Gilbert (1998) explains that Heider (1958, cited in Gilbert, 1998) sees it as being as vital as the need to eat or sleep. Hewstone (1983) suggests that we use it to preserve our self-esteem and to portray ourselves in a positive light. Psychologists […]