Insight by Psychology

Increasing physical or psychological distance—via artillery, remote weapons, or dehumanizing rhetoric—makes mass violence easier because it removes direct confrontation and the moral resistance that face-to-face contact normally triggers.

Researchers systematically overestimate between‑subject manipulation strength because they mentally simulate both conditions (a within‑subject perspective), which makes effects feel larger than they appear to participants who experience only one condition.

Believing you fully control outcomes raises your chances of success because perceiving control increases effort and persistence, whereas seeing results as mostly chance reduces motivation and thus actual performance.

When people explain their beliefs or actions they often offer post‑hoc rationalizations because many causal mental processes operate unconsciously and are inaccessible to introspection.

Warm social connections slow biological aging because they reduce chronic inflammation and stress—the physiological drivers of many age‑related diseases—thereby lowering disease risk and preserving function.

Presenting multiple credible authorities strengthens persuasion because several endorsements signal consensus and avoid the appearance of cherry-picking, which reinforces the message's credibility.

World-record performances often need favorable external conditions because transient boosts like tailwinds add performance margin that, combined with top-level ability, enable records that ability alone might not reach.

Explainable AI often needs explanations that convince people because humans build trust via plausible, comprehensible narratives, so a convincing story can be more effective than a perfectly literal account of internal processes.