Medium Psychology Highlights (Issue 4)
Education and procrastination, meta-psychology, death, and more
Question: How many posts belong in a Highlights issue? (Asking for a friend.)
I ask because I really don’t know. If you’ve read the previous Highlights, you may have noticed that I don’t have much of a clue what I’m doing. This series was born out of a vage feeling/idea/conviction/desire/obsession to help curate Medium’s—how should I put it…—sub-optimal Psychology tag and bring the crème de la crème to the surface. So I searched the Tag, made some lists, wrote some things, published some Issues… and approximately a few quasi-weeks later, here we are: Issue 4.
Issue 4 has got me facing two existencial questions (you thought it was just one? Oh, boy): Should I keep adding an image? and How many posts belong in a Highlights issue? The first one is easy. Answer’s No. I don’t feel like it today. And, without an image on the left, the first paragraph of the post fills up a whole line and I can put a neat vertical line-thing to the left of it. I like it.
The second one… Well, thing is, I went through my Medium bookmarks from before this Issues adventure started and found a bunch of posts that are totally worthy of being highlighted. Surely you can sense the anxiety building up. I’m barely starting this project. I don’t even know what I’m doing. How do I deal with this unexpected creative obstacle? Help.
Alas, you are an imaginary reader and cannot help me. Some things in life must be faced alone. I will persist. Maybe I can avoid the problem altogether. Pretend it’s not there. But then there’s pesky you. You know the problem is there. I was foolish enough to tell you myself. I almost duped you at first but got clumsy and revealed the true identity of the questioner. Now I’m in a pickle.
Ah, but I have a plan. Two phases: a double D.
First, Distraction
So last week I was reading one of Artifex Eros’ hilarious Diary of a 38 Year Old Undergrad: posts and bam! I found an amazing surprise awaiting me. We all know the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. We—the royal we?—don’t like it. But do you know the story of the MBTI? Like, do you know of the drama, the deception, the cult, the thrill? I was ignorant, too, until Art told me to go read Uncovering The Secret History Of Myers-Briggs and I obediently put all activities of my life not involving reading that post on hold. And what a ride. Please go read it. I highly recommend it. (Btw, I just found out that the author, Merve Emre, has a book coming out about this! I’m excited.)
Go check out Art’s posts too while you’re at it, she’s great.
Then, Denial
Highlights
First, a little about education, educating, and learning:
- E Price delights us again with Laziness Does Not Exist. (11 min) Their passionate and candid piece walks you through personal reflections, psychological research, and concrete examples to make the point that procrastination does not equal laziness. If there’s one thing you take away from Erika’s post, may it be an increased willingness to look at the behaviour of others with curiosity and compassion instead of judgmental resignation—a message I tried to espouse in my self-determination theory posts and certainly bears repeating.
- If Erika’s post made you rethink your attitude towards procrastinators, Muffie Waterman’s will give you a tool to better help those children in your life who are struggling with a certain task (particularly relevant if you are an educator). According to Muffie, contingent shift is The single best way to support kids’ independence (4 min). Only you can evaluate whether the post delivers on its promise—maybe you know of an even best-er way??—but I can tell you it’s definitely worth reading. I can relate to her post particularly because I am a tutor, and figuring out when I should dial up my support or back off for a moment has always been tough for me. I will pay even more attention now.
- Speaking of teaching and learning, Stephanie Hepner wants you to start recognising the power of prior knowledge. In Maximize Learning by Mastering This Key Skill (13 min), she’ll tell you just how. (One comment: I originally clicked on the post and bookmarked it when it was called “Prior Knowledge: Why It Matters and What We Can Do”. When I noticed the title change, I was apprehensive… I think I would not have clicked on the post if I had seen the new title instead of the “original”. Which makes me wonder about my curating tactics. How many good posts am I ignoring because the titles make me assume they will be under-researched, shouting-at-you-to-do-this-one-essential-thing fluff-pieces? What is my criterion for clicking on a post to reveal its true nature? Signal-detection theory comes to mind, but I digress.)
And now a meta-psychological interlude, if you will:
- The world (or at least the little snippet of stories Medium deems are “for me”) seems to be obsessed with cognitive biases and behavioural economics. They are everywhere, they explain everything, and they’re the One Key to Mastering [Insert business related life-domain]. Koen Smets calmly cautions against the hype in A bias too far (6 min). I recommend you read his post and get immunised before the virus spreads irrevocably; it will only pinch a little, I promise.
- My even smaller world of psychological methods Facebook groups and the like is positively obsessed with improving psychological research practices. Which is why it’s titillating for me to find posts like Sam Parsons’s Resisting proposed reforms to research practices in psychology: some Reflections on researchers’ rationales (9 min). Check it out to get a glimpse into what this “crisis” is all about.
- Finally, I love a good debunking of myths. Timo’s 9 Brain Myths That Won’t Die (11 min) will make sure you have the biggest “offenders” down and can do your part to stop their spread. A small issue I have with this post: I would have really liked to see links to the sources, especially when they are directly quoted. Still, good job Timo!
Aaand we’re back with some more posts that don’t seem to share a common theme:
- What is beauty? And why do we like it so much? Josh Eckert’s wonderful two-part series The Psychology of Pretty Patterns (8 min) is a journey through psychology and anthropology to answer those questions, introducing you to many interesting concepts and connecting them in ways you may have not expected.
- When You’re Autistic, Abuse Is Considered Love (11 min) by Aaron Kappel is a true eye-opener. If, like me, you’re allistic and don’t know much at all about autism, take this chance and learn something about how not to treat autistic people in your life and traumatize children by trying to “fix” them.
- We all know we are likely to die at some point, and reminders of this fact abound. But does knowing about our own mortality have any consequences for our mind and behaviour? Indeed, it does, and a lot of work in psychology has been carried out to try to understand them. One prominent and fascinating framework is Terror Management Theory, skilfully presented to you by Nick Enge in Practice Dying (12 min).
That’s all for today, folks! I hope you enjoy the posts and give a round of applause to all these great authors!
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