The discussion of bullying highlights the problem of witnesses not intervening to help a victim. This is a common occurrence, as the following well-publicized event demonstrates. In 1964, in Queens, New York, a 19-year-old woman named Kitty Genovese was attacked by a person with a knife near the back entrance to her apartment building and again in the hallway inside her apartment building. When the attack occurred, she screamed for help numerous times and eventually died from her stab wounds.

When in group settings, we are often influenced by the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors around us. Groupthink is another phenomenon of conformity where modification of the opinions of members in a group aligns with what they believe is the group consensus (Janis, 1972). In such situations, the group often takes action that individuals would not perform outside the group setting because groups make more extreme decisions than individuals do. Moreover, groupthink can hinder opposing trains of...

When we hold a stereotype about a person, we have expectations that he or she will fulfill that stereotype. A self-fulfilling prophecy is an expectation held by a person that alters his or her behavior in a way that tends to make it true. When we hold stereotypes about a person, we tend to treat the person according to our expectations. This treatment can influence the person to act according to our stereotypic expectations, thus confirming our stereotypic beliefs. Research by Rosenthal and...

Various dissolution theories provide insight into the factors that influence the dissolution rate. Danckwerts' Model suggests that turbulence, rather than a stagnant layer, characterizes the dissolution medium at the solid-liquid interface. In this model, the agitated solvent contains macroscopic packets that move to the interface via eddy currents, facilitating the absorption and delivery of the drug to the bulk solution. The regular replenishment of solvent packets maintains the...

Counterfactual thinking is a cognitive process wherein individuals mentally reconstruct alternative versions of past events, often beginning with “what if” or “if only.” This reflective mechanism plays a significant role in shaping emotional experiences and guiding future behavior. Though typically triggered by unfavorable or unexpected outcomes, counterfactual thinking can also emerge in mundane, everyday decisions and experiences, revealing its deep entrenchment in...

A heuristic is a general problem-solving framework (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). You can think of these as mental shortcuts that are used to solve problems. Different types of heuristics are used in different types of situations, and the impulse to use a heuristic occurs when one of five conditions is met (Pratkanis, 1989):