Questions tagged [psychology]
For questions relating to the thoughts and decision making processes of beings.
14
votes
14answers
7k views
How would aliens test humans for empathy?
500,000 people have been kidnapped from all over the world by aliens.
The aliens want to see if humans have empathy, and they can't understand our languages, as we speak they hear just random noises ...
6
votes
4answers
178 views
How to break down consciousness/soul from an alchemical perspective
I am trying to describe consciousness from a magic elementalist perspective. I've dug through a ridiculous amount of pages of occult alchemical lore without success. My goal is to learn if students ...
37
votes
13answers
7k views
Scientific/biological basis of someone with unlimited willpower?
Meet Greg. Greg was born with pretty average genetics. It seems like he was destined to have average intelligence, average strength, and be average at everything. There was one particularly though: he ...
-1
votes
2answers
73 views
How to discover hiding modified humans and their missions? [closed]
Consider an earthlike world where the following happened:
An UFO "crashed" somewhere on Earth some yrs ago.
It sunk into a swamp and was never found (since the swamp was huge and the UFO was small).
...
2
votes
8answers
396 views
What are the motives of spell teaching spirits?
In my world, there are spirits who can "trade" with humans. The trade is done when a spirit swears to gods to be a human's servant for using a specific spell (for example, in case of fireball, the ...
12
votes
5answers
2k views
Psychology of Long Life
I'm writing a novel about a (small) group of people with extraordinarily long lifespans.
Now I am wondering on the psychological aspects of that, which has been a side-topic here and there in similar ...
3
votes
1answer
140 views
History without resource driven wars
Usually when a population overgrows it expands in search of new land and if the fields are virgin and empty they become farmland and cities, but if the fields are already occupied and the resources ...
1
vote
3answers
122 views
Beings in Amnesia occuring after sleep, how to help them?
A planet is in the brink of destruction with constant wars and chaos.
To somehow save their world a group of scientists launched a nuclear warhead
all over their planet to release a gas that would ...
5
votes
2answers
341 views
How can I make this religion believing in “creating time traveling gods through science” believable?
I want to popularize the following or a similar belief.
In many thousand years people will travel back in time to give us an afterlife, if we make it possible, by going the steps, that will lead to ...
3
votes
2answers
82 views
Long-term effects of leaving everything you know - the aging issue
My current ongoing science fiction project has FTL travel that is instantaneous for the ships and their crews, but still, usually, takes years of real-time in the rest of the universe. This is going ...
1
vote
5answers
218 views
Is it possible for non-mainstream science to be more successful than mainstream science and still being ignored? [closed]
Suppose there is a society where there is a majority consensus on certain principles within science. On laws and mechanisms. However, suppose that minority actually does alternative science that ...
18
votes
1answer
2k views
Are competitive sports an effective way to change my Spartiates' life perspective?
I am creating a world in which a society exists that is heavily inspired that ancient Sparta, specifically with a focus on Spartiates and their military education, the agoge. A character in the story ...
24
votes
12answers
7k views
How would a child with a thousand years of experience behave?
Here's one to ponder: what would an immortal eight-year-old be like after one thousand years?
In most stories involving immortality, the immortals are fully formed adults. When those stories do ...
1
vote
2answers
161 views
What psychological effect would have interacting only with clones of yourself?
Say we are able to mass produce clones for our clone army and give them memories. Then we decide to give them the same template/personality/identity/etc.
What psychological effects would this have on ...
11
votes
5answers
708 views
How to reveal that one friend is a hallucination without revealing which one? [closed]
So, I'm working on a video game wherein there's a lot of supernatural stuff "legitimately" going on around the player, but the player character is also schizophrenic, and realizes as much. So what's ...
8
votes
8answers
2k views
Are there alternative ways aliens would think and feel emotions?
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 - ...
2
votes
3answers
155 views
Theoretical: If you were to psychologically examine people that have time-traveled, what would you look for?
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 psychologically, ...
0
votes
2answers
159 views
How deep would a pit have to be to make climbing out implausible
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 attempts ...
3
votes
6answers
306 views
Would a “perfect” clone ever rebel against the original? [closed]
I'm creating this character that has the ability to replicate herself. Her power works like this:
She can make a perfect copy of herself, which means that even her memories, thoughts and feelings are ...
7
votes
5answers
367 views
What are some not-so-obvious effects a person might experience if they were still conscious and active, but didn't have a heartbeat? [RE: Vampires]
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 or ...
2
votes
3answers
251 views
Trans-humans: neural chip implants and the Dunning-Kreuger effect
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 meta-...
5
votes
2answers
100 views
Language features of solitary mesocarnivorous humanoids
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 ...
0
votes
4answers
119 views
Why Would People Follow an Anti-Christ or a Similar Figure? [duplicate]
Why would people follow the Anti-Christ, or a similar figure? I can imagine some would follow him out of fear, some out of a desire to hurt others, and others out of greed, but what other reasons ...
9
votes
11answers
3k views
Reasons why a Mind Reader would not disclose their abilities [closed]
Setting Background:
Our boring, magicless Earth.
Character Concept: Sarah can read minds. The longer and closer she's with someone the "deeper" she reads them. This starts from basic surface thoughts ...
5
votes
5answers
329 views
What would happen if the minds of predators and prey suddenly swapped? [closed]
Just a silly idea for some sort of potentially major event, but what would happen if say the mind of cat entered the body of a mouse and vice versa, for every animal on Earth? Let's also assume that ...
0
votes
1answer
111 views
Body switch justification [closed]
The scenario is simple: A man switches body with another. Social implications are not the issue here, but the "collateral effects" of body switching.
The Ghost Brigades is a book that touches in this ...
0
votes
3answers
437 views
Ratio of LGBTQ Individuals? [closed]
I had an idea involving a society where LGBTQ individuals are more accepted than in our own world, but I need advice on the population ratios. I heard somewhere that somewhere around 90% of people ...
31
votes
13answers
8k views
On a Speedster's perception of time and ability to function in civilian life
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 ...
-4
votes
1answer
113 views
Encouraging Kindness in Rich People? [closed]
As the video linked here shows, there is some evidence linking greater wealth to a greater chance of being more of a jerk. Assuming that we're talking about humans or a sapient race with more or less ...
2
votes
3answers
167 views
Psychological Effects of being the World's only supernatural creature [closed]
Here's the pitch: A character gets outed as a supernatural creature. This person grew up around normal humans, grew up into adulthood (without anyone finding out what they are), and even has normal ...
1
vote
3answers
177 views
Human Hive Mind Alterations
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 ...
17
votes
11answers
4k views
Could a predatory semi-sentient species survive, in the long run, without the emotion of fear?
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 species.
...
25
votes
13answers
10k views
Seven Deadly Sins As Virtues? [closed]
A series I found when trawling TV Tropes had as a theme that the Seven Deadly Sins (Pride, Lust, Greed, Envy, Sloth, Gluttony, and Wrath for the unfamiliar) could be virtues if controlled properly. ...
40
votes
15answers
10k views
What would convince people to solve disputes with a deadly card game?
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 ...
12
votes
8answers
705 views
What would be the psychological differences between a human and an intelligent detrivore?
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 ...
8
votes
6answers
508 views
How would Ophiocordyceps unilateralis need to be modified to make a realistic “The Last of Us” apocalypse scenario?
In the story I am writing, the United States never pulled out of Vietnam, with the conflict continuing into the present day. During this time, the United States decided to use Vietnam to secretly ...
0
votes
2answers
66 views
Multiple insect psychology [closed]
So I am making up a human that has been hybridized with some insect species and I was wondering what the psychological consequences of these separate minds being put together would be (of course the ...
-4
votes
1answer
276 views
What would cause a 'talking head' to die? [closed]
This is a short story, situated in the near (third or fourth millennium) future.
An absolutely brilliant mathematician is working on a unified system of mathematics. One that ties all of the fields ...
2
votes
2answers
226 views
Effect of Stalemate on Soldiers' Morale
I'm dabbling with a short story involving two large but sparsely populated nations locked in a bitter war. Due to limitations of resources, technology, and terrain, neither side can conquer and hold ...
4
votes
6answers
373 views
What could cause an intrinsic fear of virtual world technology in a futuristic society? [closed]
Imagine a technologically advanced human society (about a few centuries ahead of our time) which has scientifically moved forward in many fields .
There is one specific technology however, whose ...
9
votes
3answers
261 views
The Transferable Skills of Sociopathy
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 ...
34
votes
9answers
5k views
How would prolonged use of augmented-reality combat gear affect soldiers?
Consider a future soldier with access to the technological augmentation indicated below, and for whom it is reasonable to believe he would spend (while deployed) at least 18 hours a day attached to ...
3
votes
1answer
188 views
What would drive people to kill in the deep? [closed]
Dateline: 2067
Setting: A research base at the bottom of the Marianas Trench
Depth: 10,000 meters.
Mission Duration: Thirty days
Note: This is a follow-up to my previous question: What would drive ...
24
votes
14answers
6k views
What would drive people to risk death in the deep?
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, housing ...
-1
votes
1answer
213 views
How soon does somebody become “desensitized” to seeing dead bodies? [closed]
My main character is going to be readily exposed to death in my story, and I'm not sure when it is she will stop feeling so affected by each body. She's gone through a decent amount of trauma and ...
7
votes
8answers
918 views
How would people deny obviously supernatural things in a modern setting? [closed]
So I'm designing a world where monsters from a well-known (in-universe) video game leak into a modern world. The monsters and the local law-enforcement will trade blows, bodies will drop on both sides....
8
votes
6answers
2k views
Would an alien species with an average of 130-150 IQ be annoyed by humans with average intelligence? [closed]
I would like for a species to be more intelligent than humans, i.e. be able to solve logic puzzles quicker, make mental math calculations easier, and remember more information. But I do not want them ...
5
votes
4answers
571 views
Split-brain epilepsy patients as a model for distributed intelligence? [duplicate]
I’ve been trying to wrap my head around how a creature with distributed intelligence, like an octopus, might think and feel as part of research for a sci-fi story, but have been having some ...
2
votes
4answers
543 views
If tree sap looked like blood, would we be less inclined to cutting trees down? [closed]
Compassion
We often feel more concern about the pain inflicted to animal that have expression that are more intuitive to us. We are more compassionate with a chimpanzee than a trout, in part because ...
4
votes
3answers
903 views
What other skills/affectations would be found in someone with heightened Proprioception?
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 ...
