152 checked facts

Psychology

Everything on this site about psychology — each one naming the study behind it.

You are more likely to lie after doing something good.
The moral licensing effect causes people to engage in unethical behavior after they have recently performed an act of …
You are more likely to lie after doing something ethical.
Moral licensing is the subconscious process where performing a good deed makes you feel entitled to act in your own se…
Your friends' success hurts more when it involves your own talent.
The self-evaluation maintenance model suggests you feel threatened when a close friend outperforms you in a domain ess…
Your brain fills in gaps to create complete objects.
The Law of Closure describes how the mind perceives incomplete figures as complete, coherent wholes.…
You fail to reach goals by ignoring obstacles ahead.
Mental contrasting demonstrates that visualizing success without anticipating specific obstacles actually reduces your…
You overestimate your personal consistency.
The 'end of history illusion' suggests that people consistently fail to anticipate how their personality and preferenc…
You value things more when they are scarce.
Research shows that participants in a 1975 study rated identical items as significantly more valuable simply because t…
You fear losing more than you value gaining.
Prospect theory suggests that the psychological pain of losing $100 is roughly twice as intense as the pleasure of gai…
You misremember your past self to fit your current values.
A 1986 study by Ross and Conway demonstrated that individuals recall their past attitudes as more similar to their cur…
You find people more attractive if they show flaws.
Highly competent individuals are often rated more favorably after making a minor, relatable blunder, while less compet…
You value things more once you possess them.
The mere ownership effect is the finding that items are rated as more attractive simply because they are labeled as be…
Wait times seem longer when you are uncertain.
The uncertainty effect in waiting demonstrates that people perceive wait times as significantly longer when the end of…
Events do not make you as happy as expected.
The hedonic treadmill, a concept proposed by Brickman and Campbell in 1971, hypothesizes a tendency to return to a bas…
You value things more once you claim them.
A 1990 study showed that people value an object significantly more simply because they consider it to be 'theirs' for …
You value things more when you think they required effort.
A 2004 study showed that participants valued the same physical objects more when they were told the creator struggled …
You view your past as a series of constant evolutions.
A 2013 study found that people report having changed significantly in the past decade but believe they will change lit…
You think your past tastes are a map of your future.
The consistency bias is the tendency to reconstruct your past beliefs to be more in line with your current ones.…
You think faces are everywhere because your brain is overactive.
Pareidolia is the tendency to perceive meaningful patterns, such as faces, in random or ambiguous visual or auditory s…
Your preferences change based on the choices you ignore.
Post-decision dissonance reduction causes you to overvalue your chosen option to maintain cognitive consistency.…
You struggle to change your mind despite evidence.
Belief persistence describes the psychological tendency to maintain an initial belief even after the evidence supporti…
You only notice how much you have when it disappears.
The adaptation-level phenomenon suggests that people experience significant hedonic adaptation, but individuals often …
Your memory stores only the gist of experiences.
Leveling and sharpening causes you to omit details while exaggerating specific core elements when recalling a story or…
Your memory changes every time you recall it.
Memory reconsolidation is a process where retrieved memories can become labile and subject to modification under speci…
You fear losing more than you value gaining.
Prospect theory demonstrates that losses are weighted more heavily than equivalent gains.…
You vividly remember events that never happened.
In a 1995 study, 25% of participants formed false memories of being lost in a shopping mall after being prompted with …
Reflecting on your values can undo your defensiveness.
A 1988 study found that when people wrote about a personal value, they were more likely to accept information that pre…
Your motivation drops when you feel external pressure.
Autonomy is a fundamental requirement for long-term intrinsic task engagement.…
You believe objects have a hidden true nature.
Psychological essentialism asserts that people believe certain categories—primarily natural kinds—possess an underlyin…
You fear losing money more than gaining it.
Loss aversion is the tendency to prefer avoiding losses over acquiring equivalent gains, with a median loss aversion c…
A fake smile can change your mood.
A 1988 study claimed that participants rated cartoons as funnier when holding a pen in their teeth, but these findings…
You are more likely to trust a stranger if they share your birthday.
Implicit egotism is a controversial hypothesis proposing a subconscious preference for self-associated stimuli, but it…
A smaller gift can feel more valuable than a larger one.
The less-is-better effect, described by Christopher Hsee in 1998, demonstrates that individuals often value smaller se…
You can misidentify the source of your own thoughts.
Cryptomnesia occurs when you mistake a forgotten memory for a brand-new, original idea.…
Your choices often follow the crowd's momentum.
The probability of an individual adopting a behavior increases as more people do the same, because individuals use oth…
You are less likely to help if others are watching.
The presence of other witnesses significantly reduces the individual probability that someone will offer help in an em…
You judge a person's character by their appearance.
The 'halo effect' was identified by Thorndike in 1920, but the specific 'what is beautiful is good' stereotype regardi…
You react differently to the same information framed differently.
The framing effect, where choice is influenced by whether information is presented as gains or losses, was famously ex…
You can be nudged by an irrelevant third option.
Consumers are more likely to pick a higher-priced item when a slightly worse version is presented as a decoy.…
You rewrite your history to suit your present.
After learning an outcome, you shift your past confidence to make the result seem inevitable.…
You cannot un-know what you have already learned.
Once you acquire knowledge, you systematically overestimate how easily others can grasp the same concept.…
You assume you influence things that are purely random.
People are more confident in their ability to win a game of chance if they feel a sense of personal involvement.…
You assume everyone sees the world exactly like you.
Most people believe their subjective interpretation of events is an objective reflection of reality.…
Rewards often destroy your interest in things you enjoyed.
The overjustification effect demonstrates that when you are incentivized to perform a task you already like, your intr…
You confuse physical excitement with a romantic connection.
A 1974 study found that men were more likely to approach a woman if their heart rate was already elevated from fear.…
Your emotional reaction precedes your logical assessment.
The affect heuristic is a mental shortcut where your current emotion—rather than logic—dictates how you evaluate the b…
You remember only the intensity and the conclusion of events.
Kahneman’s study showed that people evaluate experiences by their peak moments and their ending rather than the averag…
You assume other people agree with your personal views.
Ross, Greene, and House (1977) found that participants who agreed to walk around with a 'Repent' sign believed approxi…
You look to strangers to decide which path is correct.
Asch's (1951) study showed that participants gave incorrect answers in approximately one-third (35.7%) of trials to ma…
You rewrite your values to justify actions you already took.
Festinger's theory posits that when behavior conflicts with beliefs, individuals are motivated to reduce the resulting…
You adjust your confidence to match your social environment.
The spotlight effect is the psychological tendency to believe you are being noticed more than you actually are.…
You suffer more when success is almost within reach.
The Medvec et al. (1995) study found that silver medalists are less satisfied than bronze medalists due to upward coun…
You see biases in others but never in yourself.
The bias blind spot is the tendency to identify the cognitive biases of others more readily than one's own.…
You remember the beginning and the end, not the middle.
A 1962 study found that in lists of words, participants recalled the items at the beginning and end significantly bett…
You believe that your future self will stay the same.
The projection bias leads individuals to overestimate the degree to which their future tastes and needs will resemble …
You think you see the world exactly as it is.
Naïve realism is the conviction that your subjective perceptions are objective, factual accounts of reality.…
You think others are swayed more than you.
People consistently estimate that media, advertising, and opinions influence others far more than they influence thems…
You believe your internal state is obvious to others.
People systematically overestimate how accurately others can read their emotions or intentions.…
One small slip leads you to abandon everything.
The belief that a goal requires perfect execution turns a minor lapse into a total failure.…
Trying to suppress a thought makes it unavoidable.
The effort to actively ignore a specific idea increases its cognitive accessibility.…
You prefer things simply because you have seen them before.
Repeated exposure to an item generally increases liking up to an optimal point, after which boredom or habituation typ…
You blame your failures on the world around you.
The self-serving bias refers to the tendency to attribute successes to internal factors and failures to external ones.…
You struggle to change your mind when you feel threatened.
System justification theory suggests you defend the status quo even when it works against your own interests.…
You are less likely to help someone if you are in a crowd.
The bystander effect demonstrates that the presence of others reduces your perceived personal responsibility to interv…
You remember past events more fondly than you felt them at the time.
Rosy retrospection is the tendency to assign more positive attributes to past experiences as they fade from memory.…
You assume you are less likely than others to experience misfortune.
The optimism bias is your tendency to believe that your future will be more positive than the evidence supports.…
You fail to see clear objects when your focus is locked.
Inattentional blindness describes your inability to perceive visible stimuli when your attention is directed elsewhere…
Your choice changes based on how the risk is framed.
The framing effect, as demonstrated by Tversky and Kahneman (1981), shows that people react to choices differently dep…
A single new purchase triggers an endless cycle of consumption.
Grant McCracken's 1988 book 'Culture and Consumption' introduced the 'Diderot effect' as a sociological concept, inter…
Others perform better because you expect them to.
A 1968 study found that when teachers were told specific students were gifted, those students actually achieved higher…
You are physically unable to see what you ignore.
In a 1999 study, roughly half of the people watching a video of people passing a ball failed to notice a person in a g…
Your memory of an experience ignores the average duration.
The peak-end rule states that your evaluation of an experience is determined primarily by its most intense moment and …
You overvalue the impact of one life change.
The focusing illusion is a cognitive error where, when prompted to consider a specific factor's impact on life satisfa…
You create obstacles to explain your potential failure.
Self-handicapping is the act of putting barriers in your own way to protect your self-esteem.…
You stop loving things when you are paid.
Introducing external rewards for an activity you enjoy can reduce your intrinsic motivation to do it.…
Being asked about a behavior makes you more likely to do it.
Asking someone about their intention to perform a future behavior can influence the likelihood of that behavior, but t…
You judge objects differently based on what they are near.
The contrast effect describes how stimuli are perceived relative to contextual anchors, but the Kenrick and Gutierres …
Your brain fills in gaps with events that never happened.
A 1996 study found that simply imagining a past event increases the participant's confidence that the event actually o…
You believe you are more unique than you are.
The false uniqueness effect leads you to overestimate how rare your own positive traits and abilities actually are.…
You stop helping the moment a witness appears.
The bystander effect shows that the presence of other people decreases your likelihood of acting in an emergency.…
You prefer being accurately judged over being falsely praised.
Self-verification theory suggests that people seek feedback that confirms their own existing self-concept.…
You claim success for a team you barely know.
Basking in reflected glory (BIRGing) is the tendency to align with successful groups to bolster self-esteem or social …
People perform better because you expect them to.
Higher performance expectations lead to improved outcomes for the individuals being observed.…
You believe bad things only happen to others.
You consistently underestimate the probability that you will experience negative life events.…
Losing ten dollars feels worse than winning ten feels.
Kahneman and Tversky's 1992 paper established that the pain of losing is approximately 2.25 times more powerful than t…
You cannot accurately predict your own emotional responses.
A 2005 study showed that people in a calm state consistently underestimate how much intense emotions will drive their …
You like things more simply because you saw them.
A 1968 study demonstrated that participants rated nonsense symbols as more positive after repeated, brief exposures.…
You agree to big requests to stay consistent.
A 1966 study found that people are more likely to accept a large favor if they first agreed to a small one.…
You sabotage your own work to protect your ego.
A 1978 study showed that students would rather choose a drug that hinders their performance than risk failing without …
You are more likable when you make small mistakes.
The pratfall effect shows that a blunder increases the attractiveness of a high-competence individual, while the same …
You spend 47% of your day thinking about nothing.
A 2010 study found that nearly half of our waking hours are spent thinking about something other than the present task…
Rewards can turn your favorite hobby into a chore.
Extrinsic incentives often reduce the intrinsic motivation you initially felt for an activity.…
You claim your successes but blame the environment for failures.
The self-serving bias describes the pattern of attributing success to internal causes and failure to external causes, …
People perform better when you expect them to succeed.
The Pygmalion effect is a psychological phenomenon where high expectations lead to improved performance in a given are…
You believe you are safer than the average person.
Optimism bias is the tendency to rate your own risk of negative life events as significantly lower than that of your p…
You rate your own work better than the same work.
A 2012 study demonstrated that people value their own creations significantly higher than neutral observers do, often …
Simply seeing something repeatedly makes you like it more.
The mere exposure effect dictates that your preference for a stimulus increases with the frequency of your encounters …
You wrongly believe you have reached your final self.
The 'end of history illusion' is the psychological finding that people view their current self as the definitive versi…
Evidence against your belief makes you hold tighter.
Belief perseverance is the cognitive tendency to maintain a position even when the evidence supporting it has been cle…
You judge inaction more leniently than harmful action.
The omission bias is the tendency to view harmful inaction as less morally wrong than harmful action with the same out…
Asking for your plan makes you likely to follow it.
The mere measurement effect describes how measuring intentions can influence behavior, though the outcome depends on t…
You reject good ideas because you did not create them.
The 'not-invented-here' bias causes people to devalue external solutions in favor of internal ones.…
You filter out information that challenges your beliefs.
A 1979 study found that when shown opposing studies on capital punishment, people rated evidence confirming their view…
Rewarding a behavior you enjoy will make you quit.
The overjustification effect occurs when external incentives decrease your intrinsic motivation to perform an activity…
You like people more when you live near them.
The propinquity effect is the tendency for people to form friendships with those they encounter in their daily physica…
You create obstacles to explain away your future failures.
Self-handicapping occurs when you intentionally place hurdles in your own path to protect your ego.…
Your brain prioritizes bad news over good news.
A 2001 review confirmed that negative events, emotions, and interactions have a greater impact on your psychological s…
You like things more simply because you saw them before.
In a 1968 study, participants rated random shapes and words as more appealing the more frequently they were exposed to…
You forget the negative emotions of past events faster.
The emotional intensity associated with negative memories fades more rapidly than the intensity of positive memories.…
You like the things you choose more than you did.
A 1956 study found that after being asked to rate several household appliances, participants rated the one they chose …
Your mood acts as a filter for your memory.
People are significantly more likely to recall memories that match their current emotional state than those that do no…
You are more motivated on the first of January.
A 2014 study found that people seek more 'fresh start' opportunities during temporal landmarks like birthdays or new y…
You prefer things simply because you see them often.
A 1968 study showed that participants rated symbols they had viewed more frequently as having a more positive meaning.…
You understand your own car less than you think.
Participants in a 2002 study overestimated their ability to explain how zippers and toilets work.…
Your brain prioritizes threatening information over positive feedback.
A 2001 review demonstrated that negative events have a stronger and longer-lasting impact on the human psyche than pos…
You create your own barriers to protect your pride.
Self-handicapping is the psychological strategy of placing obstacles in your own path to provide an excuse for future …
Simply stating your intent makes you act more often.
The mere measurement effect suggests that asking about intentions can influence subsequent behavior, but the effect is…
You persist in bad decisions because of past costs.
The sunk cost fallacy describes the tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment in money, effort, or time has …
You believe your inner emotions are visible to others.
A 1998 study showed that speakers overestimate how much their nervousness is detectable by their audience.…
You do not remember an experience by its total duration.
A 1996 study showed that retrospective evaluations of pain are determined by the peak intensity and the final moment.…
You will invent reasons for choices you never made.
A 2005 study showed participants would justify why they chose a face they did not actually pick during a manipulated s…
Your memory is not a recording, it is a draft.
A 1974 study found that asking how fast cars were moving when they smashed led to higher speed estimates than asking h…
You can be nudged into expensive choices by irrelevant options.
A 1982 study found that adding an inferior decoy option significantly increases the preference for a more expensive pr…
A single new possession creates a spiral of forced consumption.
The Diderot effect describes how a new item that deviates from your existing lifestyle leads to a cycle of purchasing …
You believe you understand others better than they understand you.
The illusion of asymmetric insight is the tendency for people to believe that they know others better than others know…
You consistently believe you are more capable than you are.
While researchers have found that individuals often rate themselves as above average in various domains, the 1977 stud…
Your brain weighs bad experiences more than good ones.
Negative stimuli elicit stronger physiological and psychological responses than positive stimuli.…
You remember events as better than they were.
The study titled 'Temporal adjustments in the evaluation of events: The rosy prospection and rosy retrospection' was p…
You create your own excuses before you even start.
Self-handicapping is the strategy of creating obstacles to performance to protect your self-esteem if you happen to fa…
Small mistakes actually make you more likable.
The pratfall effect shows that highly competent people may become more appealing after a minor blunder, whereas the sa…
You judge others by character and yourself by circumstance.
The actor-observer asymmetry explains why you interpret your own bad behavior as a situational necessity while labelin…
You avoid the unknown even when it offers rewards.
Ambiguity aversion describes the tendency to prefer options with known probabilities over options with unknown probabi…
Your choice changes when an irrelevant option appears.
The decoy effect occurs when your preference between two choices shifts after a third, inferior option is introduced.…
You sabotage yourself to protect your ego.
A 1978 study found that participants chose to consume performance-inhibiting drugs when they were anxious about an upc…
You claim credit for things you did not do.
A 1976 study found students were significantly more likely to wear school apparel after their team won a game.…
Rewards can destroy your love for a hobby.
A 1973 study showed children offered a reward for drawing spent significantly less time drawing during subsequent free…
Your judgment of quality is anchored to recent experience.
The contrast effect is a established psychological phenomenon where perceptions are influenced by preceding, contrasti…
You treat the same amount of money differently.
Mental accounting causes people to categorize money into different 'accounts' based on the source, leading to irration…
Your confidence in a decision increases after you act.
Post-decision dissonance reduction causes people to rate their chosen option as significantly better than an rejected …
You take the credit and blame the world.
A 1975 study by Miller and Ross examined the self-serving bias, questioning whether the attribution of success to inte…
You will change your answer to fit the group.
A 1951 study found that 74% of participants gave at least one incorrect answer to a simple task to match the majority.…
You adopt the mood of the room without choosing.
A 1994 research review found that people automatically mimic the facial expressions and postures of those around them.…
One positive trait blinds you to every other defect.
A 1920 study found that officers who rated a soldier highly in one category consistently rated them highly in all unre…
The more you try not to think, the more.
A 1994 study revealed that instructions to suppress a specific thought result in that thought becoming more cognitivel…
You believe the world is fundamentally fair to everyone.
A 1966 study demonstrated that people will blame victims for their own misfortune to maintain the belief that people g…
You believe generic personality descriptions are uniquely about you.
A 1948 study found that when individuals are given a vague, personality assessment, they overwhelmingly rate it as acc…
You seek useless information just to feel more certain.
A body of research in judgment and decision-making, discussed in Jonathan Baron's 1988 book Thinking and Deciding, ind…
Asking if you will do a task makes it likelier.
A 1993 study showed that simply surveying people about their intention to perform a future behavior increases the like…
You assume your future self wants what you want now.
A 2003 theoretical paper by Loewenstein, O'Donoghue, and Rabin formalized the concept of 'projection bias,' building o…
You prefer images of yourself when they are reversed.
A 1977 study showed that people prefer their own mirror image, while their friends prefer the standard photographic ve…
You subconsciously prefer the letters in your own name.
While Pelham et al. (2002) published findings suggesting implicit egotism, those results have been widely criticized f…
You value a goal more when it requires significant effort.
A 1959 study demonstrated that individuals rated a discussion group as more interesting if they had to undergo an emba…
The size of a serving unit changes how much we eat.
A 2006 study showed that people ate significantly more when snacks were presented in larger units rather than smaller,…