The agony aunt column in the Washington Post ( January17th), carried a letter from a woman in graduate school to Carolyn Hax, the editor. She and her husband had recently married in a small civil ceremony, owing to lack of money. The young woman’s grandparents, felt that the couple was “living in sin” and refused …
I would like to share part of a very recent post from Tomgram, The Nation Institute: “You would never know that, if you left out what might be called self-inflicted pain like death by vehicle (more than 33,000 deaths annually), suicide by gun (more than 21,000 annually) or total gun deaths (30,000 annually), and fatal …
These are some of the documented delusions of Brits, for your amusement (or sympathy): Your body, or part of your body, is misshapen or ugly: 46.4% You are not in control of some of your actions: 44.3% You are an exceptionally gifted person that others do not recognise: 40.5% Certain places are duplicated, i.e. are in two different locations at the same …
Continue reading ‘Beliefs no. 3: Delusions of of some British citizens’ »
Normal people believe in the strangest things. About half of US adults endorse at least one conspiracy theory. Belief in paranormal or supernatural phenomena is widespread, and superstition and magical thinking are nearly universal.Surprisingly large numbers of people also hold beliefs that a psychiatrist would class as delusional. In 2011, psychologist Peter Halligan at Cardiff University assessed how common such beliefs …
Belief varies enormously from person to person, especially on issues that really matter such as politics and religion. According to research by Gerard Saucier of the University of Oregon, these myriad differences can be boiled down to five basic “dimensions” (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol 104, p 921). At their core, he says, these concern …
Continue reading ‘Core beliefs of human beings (part 1 of 3)’ »
