Excelling Psychology

I, Jyotika Varmani, tutor students of Psychology at all levels. I reside in Mumbai and tutor students online. You can contact me personally on my e-mail id jyotikapsychology@gmail.com or call/message me on 9892507784 for enquiries. --- Ironically, with increased knowledge comes increased ignorance, in the academic context at least. The more we understand our concepts and theories and the more convinced we become of them, the more that we let go of our critical thinking. This is what I realized when I read the book- There is a whole series presented to us by Wiley-Blackwell on busting these myths which I am eager to read in the coming days. The books in this series include-     Amongst many specific things that I learned from reading this book, I learnt that in general- we easily dichotomize psychological phenomena that are simply not black-and-white in nature; that we unconditionally accept findings proposed to us by researchers with impressive looking numbers; that we unn...

Upgraded lessons for IB Psychology are now available on: ibpsych.excellingpsychology.com Thank you for visiting!

I, Jyotika Varmani, tutor students of Psychology at all levels. I reside in Mumbai and tutor students online. You can contact me personally on my e-mail id jyotikapsychology@gmail.com or call/message me on 9892507784 for enquiries. --- It has been popularly known for quite some time now that stress is a contributing factor in obesity. Yet, most people find it difficult to see the relationship between stress and obesity. The problem in perceiving this relationship is that stress is something that is largely experienced internally. On the other hand, weight is something that is clearly visible on the outside. The question that comes to mind is, "how can something that cannot even be seen have such a damaging effect on the body?" With this post, I attempt to make obvious the relationship between these seemingly unconnected factors which is both, very real and very important to be understood. The first understanding that will help us see this relationship is that stress is cer...

Upgraded lessons for IB Psychology are now available on: ibpsych.excellingpsychology.com Thank you for visiting!

Students of psychology know that independent and dependent variables are at the heart of psychological research. Dependent variables are those for the measurement of which psychologists undertake research. Examples include levels of anxiety, body weight, span of attention, degree of extraversion, etc. Independent variables are those which influence these dependent variables. For example, public speaking increases levels of anxiety, stress increases body weight, noise decreases span of attention, socializing increases degree of extraversion, etc. Therefore, public speaking, stress, noise and socializing in these cases are independent variables. Regression quantifies relationships between independent and dependent variables. As a psychologist does it suffice you to know that stress increases a person's body weight? Wouldn't you need to know by how much the weight increases? Wouldn't you need to know whether the influence is considerable or not? Regression helps you do just t...

Ever wondered how you manage to become better and better in whatever you pursue with practice? Taking the case of writing, our alphabets and numbers become increasingly legible and our speed of writing increasingly faster the more we write.  Many experience that their wrist and fingers become more 'settled' and that they seem to develop some sort of 'memory' for the letters and numbers as they keep writing. From our knowledge of the human body, we know that the movement of our wrists and fingers is controlled by what is called the somatic division of the nervous system - the chief organ of which is the brain. The brain regulates all movements that take place in our body. Surely then, since the brain is the master controller of our movements, it must be the brain rather than the individual parts of the body that shows some response to what we practice. Indeed it does! The brain is made up of millions of cells that connect with each other through trillions of pathways. Th...

How many times we complain of not having enough time to be with our family, of not having the time to pursue our hobbies, of simply not finding the time to take a deep breath! Now that we have been forced into having time for the same, let's not waste in drawing up yet another list of complaints. Instead, let's draw a list of all the current aspects in our life that we are grateful for. I am sure most of what I have on my list today will resonate with you -  I am grateful for all those in the administration who care for me and my brothers, those who are making and implementing plans day after day to assure our safety, the satisfaction of our basic needs and whatever they can do even beyond that; I am grateful for all my thoughtful brothers who are protecting not only themselves and their near ones but also me by staying indoors despite all that it costs them; I am grateful to all those who have made technology available to us. It has made living at home not only possible but al...