Posts tagged psychology
Before I start, let me say that I know that what animals think and feel and whether they do it is a highly, highly debated topic. But, for this question, let us just assume that many animals think ...
Let us say there is an adult male, adult female, a boy, and a girl. They experience time-travel. As a psychologist, what would you examine before and after the travel to ensure that psychologicall...
Assuming that there is a prison somewhat akin to the one in The Dark Knight Rises, except being nothing more than a cylindrical hole in the earth, how deep would it have to be to make escape attemp...
I'm writing something in which the main character has become a vampire, or vampire-like entity, due to the influence of a Lovecraftian horror. What are some things they, as a conscious person, may...
Premise The Dunning-Kruger effect is a sociological / psychological phenomenon whereby low-skilled individuals mistakenly think they are good at something. In other words, individuals lack the met...
The Background I have a species of intelligent humanoids roughly modelled after bears. They're hulking great grizzly-sized solitary mesocarnivores. Genus Homo and descended from H. sapiens, but si...
Executive Summary Thank you for considering Chronograph Talent Consulting for your talent acquisition needs. We select the best talent from all previous periods of human history and make them ava...
I'm worldbuilding for a story in which a certain portion of the population relocates to a slightly habitable planet due to the complete inhabitability of Earth. It takes place several generations a...
Let's consider that the card game needs to be played, and equipment that may even kill you if you lose (via blades, electric shocks or the like, it could also even kill people by summoning supernat...
This is going to be a test run of hard-science, social science edition. This is in accordance with http://meta.worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/2348/8914. Okay, so a meteor is about to hit the ea...
All right, I'm whipping up a speedster character. Figured if she's going to run real quick she'll have to think very quickly so that she doesn't end up as a smear against a wall. So, I did some cal...
Context I got this man who can control millions of insects at a time to fight. He accomplishes this thanks to the microbots(smaller than bacteria) in his nervous system that react to his mind and ...
I am still working on my intelligent detrivore alien species and so far I have gotten some great help from you guys. But after searching online a lot about detrivore psychology I still cannot find ...
I was thinking of an idea for an alien species in a hard sci-fi universe, and I wondered if a species, with the same amount of emotions as bottlenose dolphins (Except for fear), survive as a specie...
I am developing a (magical) first-millenium CE alternate history based on an extension of historically matriarchal societies, and am trying to decide how this would affect the stereotypical male pe...
Setting So for generations a ship has been traveling through space. After reaching their desired destination you are left with a group of people who have been used to their largest spaces being no...
In this hypothetical world, evolution occurs as it should. (Not to run afoul of any genetic diversity requirements of evolution; some simple viruses have aided in the genetic shifting process). But...
Dateline: 2067 Setting: A research base at the bottom of the Marianas Trench Depth: 10,000 meters. Mission Duration: Thirty days A research base lies at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, housi...
A lot of fictional works contain people who are well over 100 years old, some 200, some 1000s of years old. The Emperor Of Mankind for example is over 10,000 years old. Colin from Highlander is ove...
Imagine a society. Every member of the society is indoctrinated in different ways by their parents, the education system, media and friends. One can think of this society as a collection of i...
I want a character who has a highly developed ability of empathy. She knows what others are feeling, and often thinking. This story does not have any supernatural or non-hard SF elements, so it n...
I have a species with mostly avoidant and introverted personalities. They prefer to stay in small, nomadic groups and flee when the surrounding population becomes too large. The criterion for "too...
In commentaries to my other question @JustinThyme suggested that high-functioning autists could be the best space colonists: A great deal of very successful scientists ARE autistic. Einstein, f...
The older man looked at the younger one. He took a deep breath and began to tell his tale, just like he was told before when he himself was that young. I've been here way longer than you, let m...
This is possibly not quite the right place to ask this question but it's fundamental to the world I'm working on so here it is; if faced with a potent existential threat, in the form of an outside ...
I am writing a sci-fi novel, set in a 1984-style dystopia, so a society which is obsessed with order and surveillance where non-predictable behaviour is punished. My protagonist is a person with a ...
My character have a split brain (severed connection between left and rigt hemispheres). What is unique about his case is that not both hemispheres have the same identity any more. From what I und...
I'm aware the brain--especially the portion concerning planning and judgement--isn't matured until around the mid-20s and that the brain's structure is sensitive to environment. That said, let's as...
What kinds of abstract colors, shapes, and other compositional elements could be used to indicate various emotions? My story features an artificial intelligence that's embodied in an industrial pr...
For the purposes of this question, "teleportation" refers to Star Trek style teleportation: a body is diassembled in one location, and reassembled with an exact (perfect) replica of the entire cons...
Congratulations, you've finally earned your space pilot's license! The only problem is, you can't afford a large enough ship to house more than one person (considering food, breathable air, refuse ...
The Scenario: My late Victorian Era mad scientist wants to domesticate the dinosaurs and mammalian megafauna of his "Lost World" island getaway, for use as companions, guardians, draft animals, and...
The current technology around this subject is somewhat hard to gauge. For obvious ethical reasons, there is not a lot of empirical precedents. Also, given that it's subliminal, it is by nature diff...
In Can I significantly shorten the days on a planet that can support human life? I asked about changes needed to a planet to support human life with a much-shorter day (12 hours or so instead of 24...
I define "generalization" as the ability to put things together into groups based on common characteristics. I define "abstraction" to be the ability to articulate what those characteristics actua...
The Snakebot of Doom - now dubbed Jormungandr by the first humans to encounter it and survive - is busy steamrolling New York into rubble, having first nuked the capitols of every member of the Nuc...
The purpose of the machine was obvious from the elegant cruelty of its design: The seat restraints and the seat's solid, one-piece, gold-colored metal structure made it clear that whatever it did...
"As I was going up the stair I met a man who wasn't there! He wasn't there again today, Oh how I wish he'd go away" Antigonish by William Hughes Meams Paul Billson makes his living in...
Imagine a meta-human, one engineered to be immortal. A combination of cybernetic enhancements, genetic engineering, and other scientific modifications have made it so this human will not die from a...
A scientist creates device that allows some degree of communication with the afterlife. The communication is very difficult and the dead can only pass small bits of information on, so there is a lo...
TL;DR: suggest human traits of mind/society that one should (a) tweak (b) leave well alone, in order to generate an alien worldview that allows a novel length tale to be told purely from perspectiv...
This question is inspired by discussion in the comments of the question What kind of supernatural powers don't break the masquerade? TL;DR Suppose you want to create a world where beings with supe...
Assuming a robot with similar intelligence to us humans came to existence. He could pass the Turing Test, the Coffee Test, the The Robot College Student Test and the Employment Test (taken from her...
A world I am working on has reached a sort of material production singularity. Recent innovations in space mining, artificial intelligence, teleportation, and 3D-printing have allowed for devices k...
Starting with a creature and its environment, how does one create its psychology? Evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology attempt to explain attributes that we observe in our fellow human...
I'm working on a deconstruction of a high fantasy setting. The plot starts with a female protagonist being forcibly summoned into said setting with few to none of her memories. The world is popul...
The AI is working as same principle as we know today. It is rational AI, which goal is to get the job done at most optimal ways. Their roles have nothing to do with human psychology, so the manufac...
I'm trying to create a nation that is greedy, opportunistic & obsessed with profits and trade. They are cunning, treacherous schemers that will swindle you despite all the pleasantries and assu...
A man with a past traumatic experience developed dissociates amnesia. Every time he experiences something traumatic, his id persona hiding in his unconscious mind comes out taking over his body. Th...
When confronted with cloning which leaves the original alive, there is the known issue that the clone could want to replace the original (e.g. as seen in The 6th day). A shared consciousness is ver...
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