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When is it defendable to use manifest instead of latent variables in psychological research?

In psychology, most of the concepts, theories, ideas etc. of interest refer to latent variables, where a latent variable is one that can't be observed directly. Instead, one has to find a manifest variable, which can be observed directly and which…
Jens Kouros
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Can bipolar disorder be considered a malfunction of the "love circuit" in the human brain?

I've not so long ago read a book on depression by a Russian psychiatrist Vladimir Levi. The book's title can be roughly translated as "Not only depression, but a pursuit of mood". I have not been able to find an english translation, so I cannot…
Alex Stone
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What is the neurological mechanism behind the "fear of failure"?

Sometimes, the fear of failing at something can be debilitating, and more often than not present a barrier for that person to even try new things - the locus of the fear can be quite different between people - ranging from academic, sporting and…
user3554
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1 answer

What cognitive processes occur during a mental exhaustion or 'burnout'?

Mental burnout - or mental exhaustion is not very pleasant, when one feels completely overwhelmed, something 'snaps' and it is hard to concentrate and maintain motivation. What are the cognitive processes that occur during a burnout? What…
user3554
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2 answers

Is it possible to become totally envy free?

Can we develop a particular mind set for being totally envy free; to stop envying others?
tsykora
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What is a neurobiological explanation of borderline personality disorder?

In other words, how do the brains of those with BPD differ from those who don't have BPD? The Wikipedia article doesn't even contain any possible explanations whatsoever.
InquilineKea
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3 answers

What is the effect of scolding kids

Is there any harmful effect of scolding kids. Also does that affect more to kids who are 1 year old or to those who are much older like 5 years and so. By the term scolding I mean: Shouting, yelling, using intimidating gesture (staring with…
gpuguy
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How are Raven's Matrices scores converted into age-adjusted IQ?

There are IQ tests based only on Raven's matrices. I wonder how a raw score on such a test is "scaled" to an IQ result. As we all know, IQ results depend on the age of individual tested. So I was looking for any data about IQ results and standard…
xemlmrx
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Fusiform Face Area (FFA) for within class recognition?

Is there any evidence (papers, studies, etc) that the Fusiform Face Area is used for any other type of recognition besides facial recognition? I remember hearing or reading a long time ago that experts activated the FFA when doing within class…
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Bias by which we tend to accept vague descriptions of ourselves

There's an effective strategy employed by horoscopes and "psychics" where they say vague statements like "You like being with friends but you value your time alone"; statements that basically "cover their bases" in multiple extremes and thus apply…
Ben Brocka
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How can psychometry measure the very high IQ's in adults?

From Wikipedia's page on Mental age, we learn that: Originally, the differences between mental age and chronological age were used to compute the intelligence quotient, or IQ. This was computed using the ratio method, with the following formula:…
quark1245
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Does an exceptional working memory inhibit intelligence?

According to the Fox News article "Chimps Smarter Than Humans in Memory Test" chimps were able to significantly outperform humans in a simple working memory task. I quote one part of the article in particular: Matsuzawa speculated there was an…
Kenshin
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3 answers

What causes dreamers to accept dreams as reality?

I have long had interest in dreaming, and one of the defining features of ordinary dreams is that the dreamer either accepts the dream as "real life", or does not question the surroundings. Compare these ordinary dreams with "lucid dreams", or…
Alex Stone
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Predicting how long a task will take

As a software engineer I have always struggled with predicting how long a project would take by underestimating and I have noticed that all of my colleagues have the same problem. In this video at 3:32 Luke Jones labels this problem The familiar…
Caesar
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How to efficiently locate existing psychology and social science measures?

Whenever I start a new research project, I typically have to find questions and scales that have proven validity in measuring constructs of interest (e.g., psychological / political science / social science scales). This can often be quite time…
Indolering
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