Portal:Psychology

Defining consciousness is challenging; about forty meanings are attributed to the term, with no universally accepted one. Consciousness can be identified and categorized based on functions and experiences, and prospects for reaching any single, agreed-upon, theory-independent definition appear remote.

According to Merriam-Webster, consciousness is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, and theologians. Opinions differ about what exactly needs to be studied or even considered consciousness. In some explanations, it is synonymous with the mind, and at other times, an aspect of it. In the past, it was one's "inner life", the world of introspection, of private thought, imagination, and volition. Today, it often includes any kind of cognition, experience, feeling, or perception. It may be awareness, awareness of awareness, metacognition, or self-awareness, either continuously changing or not. There is also a medical definition, helping for example to discern "coma" from other states. The disparate range of research, notions, and speculations raises a curiosity about whether the right questions are being asked. (Full article...)

• "No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience." — John Locke

John Philippe Rushton (December 3, 1943 – October 2, 2012) was a Canadian psychologist and author. He taught at the University of Western Ontario until the early 1990s, and became known to the general public during the 1980s and 1990s for promoting anti-Black racism through his widely discredited research on race and intelligence, race and crime, and other purported racial correlations.

Rushton's work has been heavily criticized by the scientific community for the poor quality of its research, with many academics arguing that it was conducted under a racist agenda. From 2002 until his death, he served as the head of the Pioneer Fund, an organization founded in 1937 to promote eugenics, which has been described as racist and white supremacist in nature, and as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. He also published articles in and spoke at conferences organized by the white supremacist magazine American Renaissance. (Full article...)

• ... that fashion psychology is an interdisciplinary field that studies the interaction between human behavior, psychology, and fashion?
• ... that the psychological inner space genre was a rebellion against the traditional focus of science fiction on literal outer space?
• ... that although Andrzej Żuławski's film Possession is referred to as a psychological drama and horror, its genre is still a matter of controversy?
• ... that Ahmad Nasuhi ordered a subordinate to attack the Indonesian Communist Party's offices with grenades as "psychological warfare against the central government"?
• ... that some researchers have studied Tetris as a potential form of psychological treatment?
• ... that Fortnite's Tilted Towers was described by critics as the equivalent of "psychological torture" and being "dropped into a meat grinder"?