Nearly 50 years ago, Martin Seligman and Steve Maier experimentally proved that human beings or animals can learn to become helpless when they experience uncontrollable situations and even give up avoiding aversive stimuli. Known as the Theory of Helplessness, this line of scientific inquiry is backed by robust research and has a major impact in explaining a number of psychological…
by Tayyab Rashid July, 2021 The realization that I am a citizen of an uneven world is perhaps the most inconvenient truth exposed by COVID-19. The recent unearthing of hundreds of graves of Indigenous children in Canada, brutal killing of Asian Americans in Atlanta and death of George Floyd are stark reminders that racism was and remains a reality in…
“I was dreaded with the thought of being in a room, in a new country for two weeks . . . now I think, it could have been worse,” is the response of an 18-year-old international student, safely tucked away in a downtown Toronto hotel room. I had just reached him by phone for a quarantine follow-up. “Worse in what…
Everyone wants to be happy and pursues happiness in a myriad of ways–from tickling the senses to numbing the misery with tranquillizers; from sprinkling smiley faces on a social media playground to chasing armchair happiness gurus, from seeking thrills to following the latest fads.