Cognitive Dissonance: This theory posits that we experience discomfort when our beliefs and behaviors contradict. To ease this discomfort, we often change our beliefs to match our behaviors.
Dunning-Kruger Effect: This is the phenomenon where individuals with low ability at a task overestimate their ability, while those with high ability often underestimate their competence, assuming tasks to be just as easy for others.
Bystander Effect: It suggests that the more people present in a crisis, the less likely individuals are to help. They may believe someone else will step in or that their help isn't needed.
Confirmation Bias: This is the tendency for people to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms their preexisting beliefs or hypotheses, often ignoring contradictory evidence.
Fundamental Attribution Error: We tend to attribute other people's behaviors to their character rather than their situation, while we attribute our own actions more to the circumstances.
In-group Bias: This concept posits that people tend to favor and give preferential treatment to members of their own group (in-group) while holding prejudices or biases towards those in other groups (out-group).
Halo Effect: This is the bias where our overall impression of a person influences how we perceive their other traits. For instance, if we think someone is attractive, we're more likely to assume they're also smart, kind, and funny.
Placebo Effect: This is when a person experiences perceived improvement in their condition after receiving a treatment with no therapeutic effect, merely because they believe it to be effective.
Self-Serving Bias: This is the tendency to credit our successes to our skills and efforts, but blame our failures on external factors, thereby maintaining a positive self-image.
Learned Helplessness: This concept is a state where an individual, after experiencing repeated adverse situations which they cannot control, learns to behave as if they are helpless, even when they can change their circumstances. This can apply to various aspects of life, such as work, relationships, and mental health.
Clustering Illusion: This is the tendency to erroneously perceive small samples from random distributions to have significant "streaks" or "clusters", caused by the human brain's tendency to pattern-match.
Paradox of Choice: This theory suggests that having too many options to choose from can lead to anxiety, paralysis, and dissatisfaction due to the fear of making the wrong choice.
Cryptomnesia: A form of misattribution where a memory is mistaken for imagination. People may believe they've come up with a new idea when they're actually recalling a past memory.
Capgras Delusion: A psychiatric disorder in which a person holds a delusion that a friend, spouse, parent, or other close family member has been replaced by an identical-looking impostor.
Just-world Hypothesis: The belief that people get what they deserve in life. Good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people.
Backfire Effect: When people react to disconfirming evidence by strengthening their beliefs. This is a type of confirmation bias.
Ben Franklin Effect: A person who has done or completed a favor for someone is more likely to do another favor for that person than they would be if they had received a favor from that person.
Mere-exposure Effect: People tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them. In social psychology, this is sometimes called the familiarity principle.
Anchoring Bias: A cognitive bias where an individual depends too heavily on an initial piece of information offered (the "anchor") when making decisions.
Déjà Vu: The eerie feeling that a new situation has been experienced before. While not fully understood, it's thought to be an anomaly of memory, which creates a strong sense of familiarity.
Quantum Consciousness: This theory suggests that consciousness is not solely a product of our brains, but involves quantum processes at the microtubule level, enabling 'consciousness' to exist outside the physical body.
Simulation Theory: The idea that our reality is not real, but a simulated, Matrix-like construct. Some philosophers and tech thinkers, such as Elon Musk, have seriously entertained this notion.
Roko's Basilisk: A thought experiment about the potential risks of artificial intelligence. The premise is that a future AI could retroactively punish those who did not assist in bringing about its existence.
Solanum Virus Theory (Zombie Theory): Although rooted in horror fiction, it theorizes that a virus could potentially turn humans into zombies, transforming society into a post-apocalyptic world.
Mandela Effect: The collective misremembering of a fact or event, suggesting possible alternate realities or universes.
Transhumanism: The theory that humans can and should use technology to surpass our biological limitations, essentially becoming cyborgs or achieving digital immortality.
Global Brain: This hypothesis proposes that the internet, its users, and connected systems could become a type of collective consciousness or 'superorganism'.
Solipsism: The philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist. According to solipsism, everything around you might not be real and could be a product of your imagination.
Hive Mind Theory: The idea that societies could evolve to the point where individuality is eliminated, and the population operates as a collective consciousness.
Hyperreality: A condition in which what is real and what is fiction are seamlessly blended so that there is no clear distinction between where one ends and the other begins. It's often brought up in discussions about the effects of pervasive digital and virtual technologies.
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