Psychology Blog Topics

September 16, 2007 1:52 PM

I'm starting a psychology-related blog that will focus on reviewing interesting and socially relevant literature. If you were a visitor to this blog, what type of topics would you be most interested in reading?

I would like suggestions for specific articles, if you have them. Leave a name and URL if you'd like, and I'll credit you for the idea if I use it!

posted by charmston to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

Well, I love reading stuff about why people buy things, and how to manipulate them into buying things. Sorry if that's a bit vague, I'm not a psychologist myself.
posted by londongeezer at 2:13 PM on September 16, 2007

I'm not a psychologist either, but I do find cross-cultural psychology interesting- particularly where it pertains to differences in Eastern vs. Western behavior.
posted by MiaWallace at 2:21 PM on September 16, 2007

Child psychology and it's implementation and availability in elementary education systems.
posted by snsranch at 2:59 PM on September 16, 2007

Your blog would be a great place to give a little love to the areas of psychology that are overlooked in popular media. Measurement, computational linguistics, categorisation, judgment and decision making, (to name a few) are all interesting areas that have a lot to say about human behavior and learning, but because they're difficult (often they employ complex mathematics), people don't like to pay attention to them. Maybe you could include some comment on these areas.
posted by naturesgreatestmiracle at 3:25 PM on September 16, 2007

IANAP, but I have a degree in it.

Seconding londongeezer, I find consumer psychology very interesting and very relevant. I'm thinking about the infamous study where people always picked the stockings on the right, and other product placement-type material, along with analysis that can help a layman disarm some (shady) sales techinques. This education can be presented in really interesting ways that can bridge the gap of being scientifically strong for more educated readers, but very helpful, clear and relevant for lay consumers.
posted by bunnycup at 3:30 PM on September 16, 2007

I would love to read your professional take on the given tabloid-junk of the day. you know, armchair-paris-hilton-analyzing. yes, trashy and junky and not what you asked about.
posted by krautland at 6:03 PM on September 16, 2007

Everything related to the effects that one's attitude/expectations can have on theirs and others' well beings.

Under this enormous heading, you could find things like:
- expectancy (placebo) effects
- self-fulfilling prophecy literature (esp. related to education; thinking of the "pygmalion" study)
- health psychology/holistic medicine, e.g. what treating a cancer patient's depression will do for their ability to fight the illness

I think all of us need a little reminding now and again of how powerful our own outlooks can be.

Will you post again here to say what the blog's URL is? thanks.
posted by liberalintellect at 6:31 PM on September 16, 2007

For me personally.. I think the 2 more relevant and important issues of our time are:

---the psychological ramifications of dealing with "hyper-accelerated society" (information-overload, and dealing with exponential progress in the advancement of technology)

---the psychological ramifications of dealing with massively interconnected society (being able to learn about anything/anyone at anytime.. is so radically different than previous times in history when you might spend your entire life in 1 town)
posted by jmnugent at 12:08 AM on September 17, 2007

dating and adult friends sites are, I think, a hotbed of psychology.
posted by browolf at 5:14 PM on October 30, 2007