The observations and discoveries of psychologists allow us to understand why we do certain actions, to understand the reasons for the actions of people around us and to make our life as pleasant as possible. What is stopping you from feeling happy right now? Are you good at making a good first impression? Why do we tend to overestimate the importance of certain things? A selection of psychological facts that estet-portal.com has collected for you will shed light on some features of people's behavior and become a valuable assistant for absolutely every person.
Psychological facts to make your life easier and happier
Sometimes we can't figure out why colleagues, relatives, friends, or even ourselves make mistakes, making life difficult for ourselves. The psychological facts below will allow you to understand some of the features of human thinking and behavior, as well as improve your life.
The Pratfell Effect, or Why You Should Love Your Imperfections
Often, when meeting a person, we go out of our way to make the best impression, showing only our best sides and carefully hiding all flaws. However, according to the observations of psychologists, one of the best ways to win the favor of new acquaintances is to show vulnerability and weakness. In other words, minor flaws make others treat us better.
Conclusion: if you want to please the interlocutor (whether it be a potential partner, new colleagues or an audience filled with listeners), let him notice your excitement. And a few cute missteps will help break the ice.
Minor flaws only help you make a good impression.
The Pygmalion Effect, or Why it's sometimes good to overestimate expectations
Robert Rosenthal (psychologist) administered IQ tests in schools and deliberately gave false results to students. For children with higher IQs, he said that their results were average, and for "average" got the results of the "wise men". Further observation of students showed that students with real average (but reported high) performance, trying to meet obviously high expectations, really began to study better in order not to lose face and meet the expectations of teachers and parents.
Conclusion: this psychological feature can be used in everyday life: set supposedly unrealistic goals in order to achieve more; managers can also use this trick to get more out of their subordinates.
The paradox of choice, or why more – doesn't mean better
While complaining about the lack of choices, we rarely think about the fact that the less there are, the better. More choices, as Mark Lepper and Sheena Iyengar have proven, end up making us less satisfied.
To prove this, psychologists conducted an experiment in which two groups of gourmets acted as participants. The first group was asked to choose one of 6 types of jams, the second – out of 24. The results showed that 30% of people from the first group were satisfied with their choice, and from the second – only 3%.
Conclusion: if you want to make a choice and be satisfied with it, it is better to shop with a limited choice.
The bystander effect, or why we don't always help those in need
The more people who witness an accident, the less likely it is that the victim will receive real help. The fact is that in the presence of many people, many tend to think that there is someone to help, and therefore they pass by, say, a person who has fainted. If it happens on a deserted street, when there is nowhere else to wait for help, the victim has a better chance of getting help.
Conclusion: if you are in trouble (for example, a robber snatched your purse out of your hands), personalize your appeal for help – address a specific passerby instead of asking for help from a faceless crowd.
Spotlight effect, or why others don't notice your external imperfections
I'm willing to bet you know the feeling that all passers-by notice your wrinkled shirt, ponytail or other imperfections in your appearance and secretly condemn you. In fact, of course, this is not the case. Immersed in their thoughts, people, being in society, do not notice the obvious things at all. Therefore, to be in the spotlight, you have to work hard, and imperfect appearance does not bother people immersed in their thoughts.
Conclusion: it is necessary to make an impression in person, and the crowd of others, by and large, is indifferent to your hairstyle, makeup and clothes.
The focus effect, or why we often overestimate the things we think about
Today you feel that without a new phone/clothes item/a certain amount of money/a place to live or other things you cannot be completely happy. In fact, of course, this is not the case. The more you think about certain things or phenomena, the more significant they seem to you. Looking back into the past, you will surely remember with a smile how once you could not imagine a full-fledged life without a certain object, phenomenon or even a person. Marketers very often play on this effect, pushing you to buy this or that product, assuring that it will make you happier.
Try not to overestimate the importance of certain things because you don't know what will make you truly happy in the long run.
Conclusion: accept that you simply cannot predict what will make you happy in the long run; learn to appreciate what you have, and remember that failures, like success, will not accompany you all the time – such is life.
Thanks to the work of psychologists, we have the opportunity to avoid many mistakes in thinking and behavior that make us less happy. Estet-portal.com hopes that the above psychological facts will help you enjoy life without paying attention to temporary troubles.
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