What is Flow?

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi asked the question: What makes life worth living? Decades of research on optimal experiences produced his answer: flow. The technical definition Flow is the mental state in which a person is engaged in an activity where they are fully immersed with a feeling of  energized focus, involvement, and success in the process … Read more

What is Post Traumatic Growth?

The Technical Definition Post-Traumatic Growth is a term psychologists are now using to describe the positive change occurring in an individual after they’ve experienced a highly stressful life event. It refers to the idea that suffering does not have to debilitate a person. In fact, finding a way to endure through significant suffering can actually … Read more

What is the Confirmation Bias?

The technical definition The confirmation bias is the idea that our brains are hardwired to be attracted to information that generates the least amount of cognitive dissonance (or inconsistency) in what we already believe.  This bias may lead us to seek out or attend only to information that affirms our fundamental beliefs, and it makes … Read more

What is an Amygdala Hijack?

The technical definition The amygdala hijack is an immediate, overwhelming emotional response with a later realization that the response was inappropriately strong given the trigger. Daniel Goleman coined the term based on the work of neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux, which demonstrated that some emotional information travels directly from the thalamus to the amygdala without engaging the … Read more

What is Emotional Intelligence?

The technical definition Emotional Intelligence is an individual’s ability to understand and use emotion in himself and others. According to leading researchers in the field Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer, this includes not only the ability to perceive emotion, but also the ability to evaluate and then express emotion. Salovey and Mayer have pinpointed … Read more