Medium Psychology Highlights (Issue 5)
On teamwork, UX design, philosophy, and more
3 min readMay 11, 2018
It’s been a while! I’ve been extra busy recently, and relatively unable to scour the Psychology tag as I usually do, but worry not: I still had some amazing posts in my bookmarks that I finally had the opportunity to share. Hopefully in the next weeks I’ll be able to go back to Highlighting more regularly—can’t wait to see what’s out there waiting to be discovered! Without further ado…
Highlights
- I seem to have many pet peeves. Thanks to Kathryn Brookshier, I now feel validated and confident that this particular mistake matters to others too. In case you’ve ever wondered, Method vs. Methodology: What’s the Difference? (4 min) will tell you all you need to know.
- Are you an illeist? Oh, what does that mean, you ask? Let Chris Bourn walk you through The Psychology of Referring Yourself in the Third Person (7 min) and you might come away with a strategy to improve your interview prep and even work through traumatic experiences.
- Organisational psychology has much to tell us about why some teams succeed and others don’t, and if you’re ready to invest time in reading scientific articles and edited books, you can certainly reap the benefits. But wouldn’t it be nice if there were one tip you could learn and apply today to make teamwork more effective? Wait no more, Max Yoder’s Psychological Safety and the Perfect Team (3 min) will give you more than enough to get started.
- One day I might publish a compilation consisting only of posts about the connection between psychology and UX/design—there are just so many! But while most talk about Gestalt psychology or otherwise use cognitive psychology principles, Preethi Shreeya’s is different. How To Design For Optimal User Experiences (and delight users) (8 min) translates self-determination theory, by far my favourite psychological theory, into principles for design. Check it out! (Preethi did you read my posts? If not, I’d be very curious to know how you learned about SDT!)
- Ready to be taken on an intellectual journey? This post is not about psychology per se, but it does beautifully tackle human nature (and you can read my comments on it for some related concepts in psychology). I thus invite you to follow along Taylor Steelman’s Cartesian vs. Ecological Self (10 min) to find out why Cartesian dualism might be “the most dangerous thing in existence.”
- Last but not least, some good old academic debate! Are the brains of men and women fundamentally different? Sit back as Eric Sexton discusses a recent study—and the expected misinterpretation by the media—in The Human Brain “Mosaic” (9 min).
That’s all for now! I post the Highlights rather irregularly, so follow me to make sure you don’t miss the next issue ;) Now, go and applaud these wonderful authors!
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