The subtitle to my Psychology Today blog is “What our language reveals about how we think and who we are”.

Today's topic: Is the term "black hole" racist?

Falling in love is easier than staying in love, and the process of falling out of love is a more gradual one than that of falling in love. It is claimed that preventing the latter requires hard work.

In the 80s, AT&T urged people—metaphorically—to ‘reach out and touch someone’ with their telephone service. (A literal suggestion to do so would have been baffling and possibly criminal.) So what did this metaphor of contact evoke exactly, and why was it so effective a tag-line? Telephones have always defied the distances society has created through migration, colonization, and urbanization—a magic that can now seem ordinary....

Perhaps more than anything else, our mental and emotional well-being depends on our willingness to confront obstacles in life. The all-too-common alternative, of course, is simply to retreat from them. If, however, we're genuinely to progress and feel good about ourselves, we need to resist the ever-present temptation to withdraw from whatever we'd prefer not having to deal with.

Satisfied people, who are able to further develop and flourish within a romantic relationship, are those who are most likely to stay in love.

What psychology experiment would you love to carry out if neither ethics nor practical reality stood in your way? For the August issue of Psychology Today, I asked several PT bloggers this question and printed four responses. Here's a more complete roundup of their insights.

Daily I look around me and observe how people shy away from genuine, self-revealing communication--almost as though to embark on such a path would be like walking into a minefield, where a single misstep might be fatal. But the communication we all long for--a powerful, expressive dialogue that might spiritually connect us to each another--is in fact fraught with danger and uncertainty. So almost all of us experience the need to carefully monitor just how much of ourselves we divulge to others.

Atheism is said to pose a major threat to morality. Some theists claim that disbelief leads to moral relativism and undermines the motivation to do good deeds. Recent research can help us see what is true and false about these anxieties.

Above all else, George Carlin loved language. Though it was far from his most penetrating bit, The Seven Words You Cannot Say on Television is surely his most well-known routine, having landed him in jail. So, in his honor, let's take a look at the peculiar American tendency to take offense at words.

 George Carlin passed away early this morning. He was truly a pioneer in observational humor and many of his skits will live on for years to come.

Addressing this topic generally, the immortal Dagwood Bumstead once claimed: "You can't teach people to be lazy--either they have it, or they don't." So what is laziness anyway? Is it about being slow to do something (what we typically call procrastination)? . . . Or about doing something slowly? . . . Or about not doing it at all? . . . Or, finally, is it about not sufficiently wanting to do something? And if this last alternative is true, when we label someone lazy are we really talking about that person's being indolent, sluggish, or slothful? Or is there something else going on that hasn't yet been appreciated?

Money enables the owner to move the social system, to give him what he wants.

A 2006 Washington Post article profiles a big-time Washington D.C. gang leader known as "A.J." The author reveals that A.J.'s half-brother was recently murdered. The killer then turned himself in and was charged with first degree murder. Here's A.J.'s reaction:

"I would have rather him stayed on the street -- and get some street justice . . . I'm very upset that I can't do nothing about it. I'm very upset that this dude took the sucker way out and turned himself in. I'm mad and angry."

(From "In or Out of the Game" by Kevin Merida. Washington Post, December 31, 2006)

A.J. was upset, mad, angry, and yet it seems like justice was served. The murderer was charged for his crime and is going to be punished according to the gravity of his offense. He will receive his "just-deserts." So why is A.J. so angry and upset?

New research in experimental philosophy explores the psychology behind our political preferences

Although the chances of entirely fulfilling Romantic Ideology are next to nil, most people still believe that this ideology expresses what genuine love should be. Shouldn't we be better when not adopting this ideology?

Flirting is conducted within a tacit borderline; it is a kind of game in which participants move closer to the borderline-and sometimes even step across it-and then move back to a comfortable distance from it. Cyberflirting is a type of verbal dance in which the boundaries of sexuality are not clearly drawn. Flirting is like an inactive volcano that can become active any moment.

When I was a kid, I was very good at frustrating my school psychologists. When I was 10, my parents wanted me to try out private school since I didn't seem to be receiving much enjoyment from the public school I was attending. They consulted a school psychologist to determine the best placement. I remember the day quite vividly, the day when I took an IQ test.

. . . human being. The recent emphasis about will being merely an illusion is another example of the "baby being thrown out with the bath water." At the least, it's a misunderstanding of the definition of conscious will. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I...

Some memories are better off forgotten. Like your ex-boyfriend's phone number or the reason why you dated your ex-boyfriend in the first place. If forgetting can be a blessing, why do we more often think of it as a curse?

 
You control climate change . . . if you get around to it. The problem is, the immediate costs of behavioral change are high, the effects of individual effort uncertain or at least negligible, and you can't be sure others are also working for change. This is the perfect storm for both first- and second-order procrastination.