Psychologyspeaking topic
“At bottom God is nothing other than an exalted father.”
— Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo (1913)
practice with this topic
Set the timer (5-30 min), take 20 seconds of prep if you like, start talking. Jot your thoughts onto the sticky-note board.
similar topics
- Memory consolidation: why does a new memory become permanent not at the moment of learning but hours or even days later? What does it physically mean for knowledge to 'settle in'?
- Loss aversion: why does losing a hundred dollars hurt more than winning a hundred dollars feels good? How does this asymmetry shape the way we take risks?
- Linguistic determinism: if a language has no word for a concept, can its speakers still think it? When you learn a word that names a feeling, do you start feeling it more clearly?
- How does anyone stay disciplined for years rather than days?
- The planning fallacy: why do we always underestimate how long a task will take? We have run late every single time before, so why are we optimistic about the next one?