MOST OF US have experienced conflicting beliefs at one time or another. For instance, you know that drinking too much alcohol is bad for your health, but you pour yourself a second glass of wine ...

Elicitation is a technique to obtain sensitive information without asking direct questions. Direct questions trigger defensive responses to protect information people would prefer to remain unsaid.

Cognitive dissonance is what happens when a person holds two sets of beliefs at odds with each other. The human brain doesn’t like logical inconsistencies, so someone experiencing cognitive dissonance ...

Conversation among us is peppered with observations of the division within the American population. The division is revealed in a number of forms. It may be the acknowledgement of the political gap ...

Do you keep second-guessing your decisions after you’ve made them? Immobilizing yourself? Berating yourself when you finally decide on something? This can be a normal albeit painful way to make ...

Kim M Caudwell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond ...

Members of Heaven’s Gate, a religious cult, believed that as the Hale-Bopp comet passed by Earth in 1997, a spaceship would be traveling in its wake—ready to take true believers aboard. Several ...

Last month, President Obama assured the world that “words must mean something.” Yes, but what? The President has just informed us, in his most earnest tones, that current U.S. deficit spending is ...

The analysis of changes and breakthroughs in relations between states is conspicuously absent from the cognitive literature dealing with foreign policy decision-making, although they do, indeed, occur ...

The President has just informed us, in his most earnest tones, that current U.S. deficit spending is “unsustainable.” More amazing news followed: government borrowing will mean higher interest rates ...