The Neurosphere

    Nearly everyone has experienced a group project setting where they have been overly attached to their own ideas and contributions despite apparent dissatisfaction from partners or teachers. Why is it that we are so attached to our projects and ideas and have such difficultly with criticism? Named after the Swedish furniture giant, This phenomenon is called the " IKEA effect ."          The IKEA effect describes how people are more likely to value something if they put time and effort into it. For example, someone may be more hesitant to donate a piece of furniture that they built on their own compared to a piece of furniture that was installed for them. This idea piggybacks off of the sunk cost fallacy , a cognitive bias that describes the tendency for people to fully commit to something if they have spent time and money on it. These two biases often work together to influence decision making. Another key mechanism behind the IKEA effect is the end...

    Many of us have heard and used the phrase "in the flow" when referring to someone or ourselves performing extremely well in a given activity, but few people are familiar with the actual psychological concept of " flow ." Despite its frequent references in mainstream culture, flow is more than just a common saying: flow is a psychological phenomenon that has been studied for decades. The question is, what is flow, and how do we achieve it to unlock peak performance?     Psychologist  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi--one of the fathers of positive psychology--defines "flow" as a mental state where one is fully immersed and skillfully engaged in a task at hand. In an interview with Wired magazine, he describes the phenomenon in detail:  “…being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re...

    We have all wanted to "win" at something, whether it be larger wins like an academic award or placing in a sport, or a smaller win, like receiving a compliment on a hairstyle or outfit you spent a lot of time putting together. For some people, "wins" in certain areas of their lives come easier to them than others. You may be one of these people. However, being exposed to constant "wins" may not always produce a positive overall association with the given activity, and many can relate to feeling devastated following a loss and indifferent after a success. In order to examine this concept and why humans experience winning this way, it is important to understand the hedonic treadmill.      The hedonic treadmill, also known as hedonic adaptation, is the observed tendency of humans to swiftly return to a stable level of happiness after an extremely positive (or negative) experience. To apply this theory to a real-life scenario in order to explain how this c...