The 10 most curious psychological phenomena (and their explanation)

Humans are amazing beings, so It is common for us to show psychological phenomena and processes that are far from what is considered normal and it is curious to study them. There are different phenomena such as cognitive dissonance, obedience to authority or choices influenced by our emotions that make us wonder how Rational is our behavior and what influences it may have on our thinking or beliefs, sometimes leading us to act in a contradictory way. they.

We will see how these phenomena occur without being able to do, many times, a voluntary control by the person who presents them. We do not mean by this that they are negative or harmful to us, but having a greater knowledge of them it can help to be a little more aware of what is happening in order to act in a more functional way and adaptive.

In this article we will quote you and explain some of the psychological phenomena that generate the most curiosity, thus trying to solve some of your questions.

• We recommend you read: "The 3 most cruel (and disturbing) psychological experiments in history"

Surprising psychological phenomena that will not leave you indifferent

The capacity and functions of the human mind never cease to surprise and raise questions about different phenomena that occur. We like to think that we can control everything we think, feel and do but on different occasions we see that it is difficult to carry out or maintain this control and that we end up acting in ways that we had never thought or conceived before possible.

It is for this reason that below we will mention some of the psychological phenomena that we have considered the most curious and that may be of interest to you. Surely in more than one you can think of an example that has happened to you.

1. Cognitive dissonance

The phenomenon of cognitive dissonance proposed by Leon Festinger has been of great interest in Social Psychology, he refers to the fact that When two dissonant elements appear, different or contrary to each other, a psychological state of discomfort and discomfort occurs in the subject which will try to reduce or eliminate, as well as avoid all kinds of information that causes the increase of this dissonance or discomfort. Thus, the author points out that this phenomenon is of motivational origin.

As we have said, this phenomenon has been widely studied in the social sphere, carrying out different investigations to better study this process. This phenomenon is typical to appear when we do a behavior contrary to our beliefs or thoughts, for example if we have to give our opinion on an issue but we are obliged to lie, a dissonance is likely to appear, although it will also influence if there is an external reason that justify or not, that is, if I express an opinion contrary to mine but they pay me for it, I will surely feel less dissonance than if they do not give me any reward in return.

2. Hallucinations

Hallucination is a term that usually causes great fear and we normally value it as something unusual that only the "crazy" or "sick" have, but this statement is not true since it has been proven that a third of the population has had a hallucination.

So that hallucinations are classified as a sensory perception psychopathology, more specifically they are considered a perceptual deception, this is defined as the erroneous perception of a stimulus outside without there being any object, this means that through any of the 5 senses, sight, hearing, touch, smell or taste, the subject perceives a presence when there really is no any.

In this way, this curious phenomenon is one of the typical symptoms in patients with schizophrenia, but it can also occur in other mental disorders and even in the population without disorder, for example in a situation of great stress, with many stimulation or the opposite of stimulus deprivation are conditions where it is more likely that we can present hallucinations Emphasize that the difference between the population without disorder compared to those who do have it, is that in the latter hallucinations are more frequent and are maintained over time, also showing other symptom.

3. Obedience to authority

Also known in Social Psychology is the study carried out by Stanley Milgram where a group of experimental subjects who had to give an electric shock to another individual, who was an accomplice, if this it failed. In this way, it was seen that 65% of the experimental subjects continued to apply shocks up to 450 volts sufficient to kill the subject.

It was found that despite the individuals showing discomfort, the majority continued with the experiment and they just needed the presence of an authority figure to remind them to continue, at no time were they forbidden to finish. With the realization of this experiment, an attempt was made to explain behaviors as inhumane as those occurred by the Nazis during the Holocaust, how an authority figure can make you do behaviors you never thought possible.

4. Choices influenced by emotions

The human being is a rational being but there is another variable that influences our thinking and when we make a choice, this is emotion. People have these two parts, the rational and the emotional, that interact with each other and despite make ourselves different from other living beings, sometimes decisions or choices are not the most successful.

At all times our emotions influence our day to day, in our decisions and choices, since they are states that we cannot avoid and that appear and influence us although not we want, making our reaction not as rational as it should be, even though we try to convince ourselves that it is. has been.

5. Placebo effect

The placebo effect is very surprising since shows how powerful our mind can be. This effect consists of the appearance of a change in the subject when taking a drug that does not really have any effect. To make it clearer, we propose the following example, a patient with a physiological affectation such as a headache is told that with that pill that pain will disappear, the curious thing will be to see how effectively the subject improves although the pill did not really have any active ingredient and was only sugar.

6. Social laziness

Social laziness is a term that has been used to refer to the decrease in motivation and work when carried out in a group. Thus, we observe a decrease in effort when we do group work compared to that done individually.

It may be because the subject thinks that his contribution will hardly be identified and valued or that it will be similar to others already made and therefore is unnecessary. Thus, increasing group size will also increase inefficiency and laziness at work.

7. Thinking about our successes does not help our motivation

It has been seen that fantasizing and thinking about the successes we have already had does not help us to remain motivated. Focusing on the past, even on positive events, can distract us and not help us focus. in the current objectives, in the present, thus reducing the involvement and motivation directed at the moment current.

8. Wanting to suppress a thought increases its presence

It is common and it will have happened to you that when you want to stop thinking about something and force yourself to do it, simply denying the thought keeps you thinking and stays in mind. An example could be, if I tell you "don't think of a bear" you inevitably have already thought of him.

This is the typical process that happens to people who suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder, in these subjects unpleasant ideas appear in a way repeatedly called obsessions, these generate a discomfort in the patient who will try to avoid them, but this purpose paradoxically makes increase.

9. The ability to divide our attention

Divided attention is a type of attention that allows us to be aware and attend to different stimuli or tasks at the same time, that is, to be able to perform more than one action simultaneously.

It has been proven that for this to be possible, for divided care to be effective and we can perform multiple tasks properly, it is necessary that we have mastery of all or most of homework. That is, I will be able to type on the computer and speak by phone with a client in an optimal way and without problems, if I have both tasks trained and I do them regularly.

10. Happiness is in the small details

It is normal and adaptive that we have future goals that are normally complex and require effort and time to achieve them, but to stay motivated and achieve these long-term goals, it is necessary to have small rewards, small short-term goals that are easier to achieve and keep us strong to meet our goal final. Every reward, effort or achievement is to be valued and we must feel happy about it, it is the sum of these that will make us happy, each small advance is an achievement.