psychology

6 posts

When Hoarding Hits Home

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I get no pleasure from watching the television shows about hoarders. For most,the shows will motivate them to clean and toss away unneeded junk, making them feel better about their lives. For me, it makes me want to curl up in bed and take a nap. Why is this? My father is an honest to goodness, pathological hoarder and my mother in her codependency has become a willing participant. Growing up in the household, I developed tendencies to want to hoard, but work on fighting them daily.

I’m not sharing this to shame my parents or make fun of them. Although, the fake Christmas tree left standing in June, that my mother will buy ornaments for year round, has become an absurd joke between my sister and I. I share this, because there is a side most don’t necessarily see on these shows. And that is the humanity behind the hoards. What has brought people to live in homes where they literally have to crawl over things to get from one side of the house to another. Continue reading →

Easily Embarrassed? That’s a Good Thing

“Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.” – Mark Twain

“Blushing is the color of virtue.” Diogenes Laertius

According to Edward Gross,PhD, a University of Washington professor who has studied embarrassment for decades, embarrassment has four key elements:

– There must be a failure for which you feel responsible.
– Usually it happens suddenly, or in a way that doesn’t give you enough time to adjust.
– It must be in public or take place in a manner in which the public is aware of the situation
– One must value the opinion of others who witnessed the ‘goof’ Continue reading →

A Crass Social Experiment – The Results!

Hello again Crasstalkers, lets look at results of our little quiz from yesterday.

Credit where it’s due: the quiz was taken from a book called Snoop by Professor Sam Gosling, an entertaining and informative study on what we can learn of people’s personalities through their offices, bedrooms, trash cans, cars, music collections, job interview behaviors, etc.; in many cases, what we think we can learn but actually can’t.

The quiz, seemingly about our knowledge of various celebrities, was not really about our knowledge of celebrities. You are not about to be shamed for knowing all about Apple Martin while knowing nothing of Hermann von Helmholtz.

Continue reading →

A Crass Social Experiment – How Well Do You Know These Celebs?

I’ve come across an interesting psychological study involving your knowledge of various celebrities that I’d like to try out on the Crass Commentariat. The quiz is simple and will take you only a minute to answer. At the end of the post is a list of names. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you know about each individual on the list, where 1 is “never heard of them” and 10 is “know their life story”?

Continue reading →