Psychologyspeaking topic
Regression: falling back into childish behavior under stress. Why does a grown adult sulk or go silent the moment things get hard?
— Freud, defense mechanisms (regression)
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
- Bilingual children don't mix their two languages; they learn astonishingly early which language belongs to which person, speaking one with their mother and the other with their father. Even a one-year-old switches languages based on the face in front of them. How does a mind that small route languages to people so cleanly?
- Affective forecasting: we constantly overestimate how happy or miserable something will make us, then adapt to it with startling speed. So how much should we trust decisions built on 'this will make me happy'?
- Prepare to explain something to someone else and you learn it far better than if you'd crammed for a test. Even the mere idea 'I'm going to teach this' changes your memory. Why does knowing you'll share information transform how you process it?
- Why is it so hard not to take criticism of your work personally?
- Speakers of languages that grammatically separate the future from the present ('it will rain tomorrow') save less money; speakers of languages that let the future sound like the present ('it rains tomorrow') save more. As if pushing the future far away in grammar makes people care about it less. Is the money in your pocket really shaped by your grammar?