“Dieters relapse, smokers relapse, anyone with anything approaching a compulsion relapses—usually more than once. This study suggests that part of this repetition… — David DiSalvo Education Copy Share Image
“the adaptive capabilities of our brains—like pattern recognition—did not evolve to make sense of complex commercial environments like those we live in.” — David DiSalvo Copy Share Image
“When combined, the challenge to gain future perspective and the desire for immediate rewards sets us up for a range of problems.… — David DiSalvo Copy Share Image
“even a small amount of ambiguity triggers increased activity in the amygdalae—two deep brain structures that play a major role in our… — David DiSalvo Copy Share Image
“Overindulgence of our brain's tendency to wander is, however, a potentially debilitating problem. Psychologists have even coined a phrase to describe it:… — David DiSalvo Copy Share Image
“The best way to think of how our brains frame information is to imagine a picture frame, except unlike a normal frame,… — David DiSalvo Focus Copy Share Image
“Since our brains are adept at finding and drawing conclusions from patterns, it's not surprising that coincidences captivate our attention.” — David DiSalvo Coincidences Copy Share Image
“The study authors believe that when high achievers are primed to achieve excellence, the idea that a task is “fun” undercuts their… — David DiSalvo Achievers Copy Share Image
“intentional stance: we refer to objects both animate and inanimate as if they have minds as a shortcut to figuring out what… — David DiSalvo Copy Share Image
“activated when recalling a personal memory—the posterior cingulate gyrus, parahippocampal gyrus, and left occipital lobe—are also active when thinking about a future… — David DiSalvo Memory Copy Share Image
“Harvard psychologist Daniel T. Gilbert, we report being less happy when in mental default, even though (according to this study) our minds… — David DiSalvo Education Copy Share Image
“The anticipation of eating the candy drives up temptation, but the image of already chewing and swallowing M&M's drains the energy out… — David DiSalvo Food Copy Share Image
“Loneliness, Cacioppo points out, has nothing to do with how many people are physically around us, but has everything to do with… — David DiSalvo Failure Copy Share Image
“Whenever we are presented with a commitment that is a long way off, our normal tendency is to downplay the commitment—particularly if… — David DiSalvo Commitment Copy Share Image
“why we repeatedly convince ourselves that we've overcome impulsiveness and can stop avoiding our worst temptations.1 This particular tendency toward self-deception is… — David DiSalvo Impulsiveness Copy Share Image
“The first is working memory, or what we usually call “short-term memory”—the category of memory that includes anything we are actively thinking… — David DiSalvo Memory Copy Share Image
“Not by coincidence is the divorce rate for second marriages higher than it is for first marriages; attempting to recapture the anticipation… — David DiSalvo Marriage Copy Share Image
“After writing about their favorite TV shows, participants verbally expressed fewer feelings of loneliness and exclusion than when describing the filler TV… — David DiSalvo Academic achievement Copy Share Image
“When we do a moral act to offset an immoral one, we are engaged in “moral cleansing.” When we do nothing, or… — David DiSalvo Bank account Copy Share Image
“homeostasis—defined by renowned physiologist Walter Bradford Cannon as “the property of a system that regulates its internal environment and tends to maintain… — David DiSalvo Copy Share Image
“yawns are contagious for the same reason that smiles, frowns, and other facial expressions are contagious: They are a measure of empathy,… — David DiSalvo Copy Share Image
“Preestablished schemata guide our attention to evaluate new information, but they can also guide our attention to selectively ignore information inconsistent with… — David DiSalvo Copy Share Image
“Specifically, a web of neurons—dubbed the “default network”—spanning three brain regions (the medial prefrontal cortex, the posterior cingulate cortex, and the parietal… — David DiSalvo Brain Copy Share Image
“Subjects holding the warm beverage had a significantly higher level of perceived closeness to the individual they selected than subjects holding the… — David DiSalvo Copy Share Image
“transactive memory—which simply means that over time relationship partners are able to rely on each other to remember things.3 They become a… — David DiSalvo Memory Copy Share Image
“social surrogacy hypothesis,” which holds that humans can use technologies, like television, to feel a sense of belonging that they're lacking in… — David DiSalvo Life Copy Share Image
“Children who observe an adult intentionally manipulating an object have a strong tendency to encode all of the adult's actions as meaningful.” — David DiSalvo Child Copy Share Image
“tendency to seek confirming evidence and ignore disconfirming evidence as “confirmation bias,” and it's as human as sex, sleep, and barbeque.” — David DiSalvo Copy Share Image
“The results again showed that people holding heavy clipboards assumed stronger, more polarized positions than those holding light clipboards, and made significantly… — David DiSalvo Copy Share Image
“when we get the thing we wanted, the game is over. On top of this, something psychologists call habituation begins to set… — David DiSalvo Habituation Copy Share Image
“For certainly, at the level of social life, what is called the adjustment of man to his environment takes place through the… — David DiSalvo Life Copy Share Image
“Research indicates that those who obsessively ruminate tend to dwell on negative thoughts and emotions. There is, in fact, a strong correlation… — David DiSalvo Depression Copy Share Image
“humans are born with brains structured to make sense of the world, and that often leads to beliefs that go beyond any… — David DiSalvo Brains Copy Share Image
“your brain is structured to make sense of stimuli and patterns in any environment you step into, and it's finding patterns in… — David DiSalvo Brain Copy Share Image
“framing bias), defining it as the decision maker's conception of acts, outcomes, and contingencies associated with a particular choice.” — David DiSalvo Bias Copy Share Image
“selective attention,” also called “selectivity bias”—the tendency to orient oneself toward and process information from only one part of our environment to… — David DiSalvo Focus Copy Share Image
“It would be difficult to exaggerate the degree to which we are influenced by those we influence.” —ERIC HOFFER, THE PASSIONATE STATE… — David DiSalvo Influence Copy Share Image
“use of concrete language strongly correlates with a sense of social closeness, whereas abstract language correlates with social distance.” — David DiSalvo Language Copy Share Image
“Neurons that fire together wire together.” What this means in terms of memory is that the more intense the activity is between… — David DiSalvo Brain Copy Share Image
“Our expectations for what we should be able to recall are hardly in line with what our brains are capable of processing—which,… — David DiSalvo Brains Copy Share Image
