Category
Psychological Phenomenon
Recurring patterns in how minds behave - observed effects that shape how we feel, act and relate to others.
27 concepts
Apophenia
The tendency to perceive meaningful connections, patterns, or intentions in random or unrelated information.
Psychological PhenomenonArrival Fallacy
The belief that achieving a particular goal will make you permanently happy - followed by the discovery that it doesn't.
Psychological PhenomenonAversive Racism
When people who genuinely believe they are not prejudiced still harbour unconscious biases that shape their behaviour in subtle ways.
Psychological PhenomenonBackfire Effect
When correcting someone's false belief makes them believe it even more strongly.
Psychological PhenomenonBetrayal Aversion
We'd rather face a worse outcome from chance than a better one that carries any risk of being betrayed by another person.
Psychological PhenomenonBystander Effect
The more people who witness a problem, the less likely any one of them is to help.
Psychological PhenomenonCompassion Fatigue
When constant exposure to suffering erodes your ability to care, not because you're heartless but because you're human.
Psychological PhenomenonCompetitive Victimhood
The tendency for groups in conflict to compete over who has suffered more, using their pain to claim moral authority and deflect accountability.
Psychological PhenomenonDecision Fatigue
The deterioration in the quality of decisions made by a person after a long session of decision-making, as mental energy depletes.
Psychological PhenomenonDiffusion of Responsibility
The tendency to feel less personally responsible for taking action when others are present.
Psychological PhenomenonExpectancy Violation
When someone breaks from expected behaviour, you don't just notice - you react more strongly than the behaviour itself would normally warrant.
Psychological PhenomenonIllusory Truth Effect
Repeat something often enough and people start to believe it - not because it's true, but because it's familiar.
Psychological PhenomenonImplicit Association
The automatic, unconscious mental connections between concepts, groups, and attributes that shape perception and behaviour without conscious awareness.
Psychological PhenomenonLearned Helplessness
When repeated failure teaches you to stop trying - even when the situation has changed and escape is possible.
Psychological PhenomenonMicroaggressions
Small, everyday slights and indignities - often unintentional - that communicate hostility or prejudice toward members of marginalised groups.
Psychological PhenomenonMoral Hypocrisy Judgement
We punish the contradiction between someone's stated values and their behaviour more harshly than we punish the behaviour alone.
Psychological PhenomenonMoral Licensing
The psychological loophole where doing something good gives you permission to do something bad.
Psychological PhenomenonNormalcy Bias
The tendency to underestimate the likelihood and impact of a disaster or major disruption because things have always been fine before.
Psychological PhenomenonObedience to Authority
The tendency for people to comply with instructions from a perceived authority figure, even when those instructions conflict with their own conscience.
Psychological PhenomenonPareidolia
The tendency to see recognisable shapes - especially faces - in random patterns, clouds, textures, and noise.
Psychological PhenomenonPluralistic Ignorance
When everyone privately disagrees with something but goes along with it because they assume everyone else agrees.
Psychological PhenomenonRelative Deprivation
Feeling worse off based on who you compare yourself to, not on what you actually have.
Psychological PhenomenonSocial Proof
We look at what other people are doing to decide what we should do - especially when we're uncertain.
Psychological PhenomenonStreisand Effect
When attempting to suppress, censor, or hide information backfires by drawing far more attention to it than it would have received otherwise.
Psychological PhenomenonSymbolic Racism
When prejudice hides behind the language of fairness - opposing policies that help marginalised groups while insisting the opposition isn't racial.
Psychological PhenomenonVictim-Perpetrator Cycle
Groups that have suffered persecution can, once they gain power, go on to persecute others - often using their past suffering as justification.
Psychological PhenomenonWoozle Effect
When a claim gets cited so often that people assume it's been proven - even though the evidence behind it is thin or nonexistent.