Psychology – Ben Caufield

Pavlov’s Dogs

During the 1890’s, a Russian scientist called Ivan Pavlov conducted a series of experiments investigating the links between various stimuli and the responses they elicited. The findings of the studies are often referred to as “Pavlov’s Dogs” and explore human behaviour.

You’ll Probably Forget This By Tomorrow

How good is your memory? How long are you able to remember something after you’ve just learnt it? To help understand we can look at the findings of the German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus.

Reward Yourself Regularly

Through the work of B.F. Skinner and Operant Conditioning theory (1983), we’ve learnt that behaviour is more likely to be repeated if you positively reward yourself for doing it. If you want to change something in your life or form a new habit, then reward yourself for doing it. No matter how small the behaviour is, if you reward yourself for it then it will be more easily repeated next time.

All You Need To Do Is Ask

We often want things to happen in our lives but we rarely find ourselves actually asking for it. We just sort of hope that others will offer it to us or read our minds. We avoid asking out of fear of rejection and looking silly. More often than not, if we just ask for what we want we may actually get it.