<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[My Site 4]]></title><description><![CDATA[My Site 4]]></description><link>https://acrossminds.wixstudio.com/acrossminds/blog</link><generator>RSS for Node</generator><lastBuildDate>Sat, 30 May 2026 08:04:52 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://acrossminds.wixstudio.com/acrossminds/blog-feed.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><item><title><![CDATA[Why Compliments Make Us Uncomfortable]]></title><description><![CDATA[By Selina Huang Someone says you did well. Someone calls you smart. Someone tells you that you look good today. Instead of simply accepting it, you deflect. You laugh. You downplay. You say it was nothing. Receiving praise often feels harder than giving it. This discomfort is psychological, not accidental. One explanation comes from self verification theory. People prefer feedback that confirms their existing self beliefs, even if those beliefs are negative (Swann 1983). When a compliment...]]></description><link>https://acrossminds.wixstudio.com/acrossminds/post/why-compliments-make-us-uncomfortable</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69a74ed1686f0e042b4fc3ed</guid><category><![CDATA[Psycholinguistics]]></category><category><![CDATA[Neuropsychology & Expression]]></category><pubDate>Mon, 18 May 2026 00:19:20 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d871c3_124d633f48d949a09f35bbbcb62ce2a3~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Selina Huang</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why We Feel Awkward After Saying Something Vulnerable]]></title><description><![CDATA[By Selina Huang By tabitha turner on Unsplash You finally say it. You admit you were hurt. You confess that you miss someone. You share something personal that took courage to express. And then, almost immediately, you regret it. The feeling is familiar. A rush of exposure. A replay of the moment. A question that loops in your mind. Why did I say that? This post vulnerability discomfort is not weakness. It is biology. Vulnerability activates the same neural systems involved in social threat...]]></description><link>https://acrossminds.wixstudio.com/acrossminds/post/why-we-feel-awkward-after-saying-something-vulnerable</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69a74e38a29c2f9814732c5a</guid><category><![CDATA[Neuropsychology & Expression]]></category><pubDate>Mon, 18 May 2026 00:19:20 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d871c3_c70e23875ff74a9ba0164a1fd661dee8~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Selina Huang</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why We Feel Most Honest Late at Night]]></title><description><![CDATA[By Selina Huang By Nathan Anderson  on Unsplash There is something about late night honesty. Confessions feel easier. Messages get longer. Thoughts that stayed buried all day suddenly surface. We tell the truth when the lights are low and the world is quiet. This pattern is not poetic coincidence. It is psychological timing. Cognitive control weakens as the day goes on. Self regulation relies on mental resources that fatigue over time. By night, the brain has less energy to filter thoughts...]]></description><link>https://acrossminds.wixstudio.com/acrossminds/post/why-we-feel-most-honest-late-at-night</link><guid isPermaLink="false">697547ccd43586da50c2deea</guid><category><![CDATA[Neuropsychology & Expression]]></category><category><![CDATA[Psycholinguistics]]></category><pubDate>Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:56:01 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d871c3_4e2c38465cf3474883483a81cb8ba348~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Selina Huang</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why Our Brains Romanticize the Past More Than the Future]]></title><description><![CDATA[By Selina Huang By The New York Public Library  on Unsplash The past often feels warmer than it was. Even painful memories soften with time. Awkward moments become funny. Loneliness turns into longing. We replay old scenes and think they meant more than they did while the future feels vague, uncertain, and harder to love. This is not sentimentality. It is psychology. Memory is not a recording. It is reconstruction. Each time we remember something, the brain rebuilds it using emotion, context,...]]></description><link>https://acrossminds.wixstudio.com/acrossminds/post/why-our-brains-romanticize-the-past-more-than-the-future</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6975474ed43586da50c2ddb6</guid><category><![CDATA[Anthropological Insights]]></category><pubDate>Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:56:01 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d871c3_d3a9a1ca7d064208ad81771285f6bcf3~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Selina Huang</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why We Are Drawn to Watching Other People’s Lives]]></title><description><![CDATA[By Selina Huang By Alexander Krivitskiy  on Unsplash Many of the most watched videos on social media apps are quiet and uneventful. Someone studies. Someone cooks. Someone cleans their room. Nothing dramatic happens. And yet these videos feel comforting. They are watched not for information, but for presence. Psychologically, this reflects a desire for low stakes connection. Watching someone live their routine activates mirror neuron systems in the brain, which allow us to simulate actions...]]></description><link>https://acrossminds.wixstudio.com/acrossminds/post/why-we-are-drawn-to-watching-other-people-s-lives</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69754475d43586da50c2d699</guid><category><![CDATA[Neuropsychology & Expression]]></category><category><![CDATA[Psycholinguistics]]></category><pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 01:16:52 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d871c3_54f69877432c4a3988c9a2047b488bdf~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Selina Huang</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why Soft Life Content Is Everywhere Right Now]]></title><description><![CDATA[By Selina Huang By Jovan Vasiljević  on Unsplash Scroll through Rednote and a pattern quickly emerges. Slow mornings. Quiet rooms. Neutral colors. Gentle music. A cup of coffee held near a window. This wave of soft life content looks peaceful, almost weightless. But its popularity is not accidental. It reflects a collective psychological response to pressure, exhaustion, and overstimulation. The soft life trend presents rest as an identity. Unlike traditional productivity content that frames...]]></description><link>https://acrossminds.wixstudio.com/acrossminds/post/why-soft-life-content-is-everywhere-right-now</link><guid isPermaLink="false">697543d716ee2e05645dcc14</guid><category><![CDATA[Anthropological Insights]]></category><pubDate>Wed, 25 Mar 2026 01:16:48 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d871c3_b914d2fb41954c1b89b2c385ec4dab4c~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Selina Huang</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why We Feel Guilty for Resting]]></title><description><![CDATA[By Selina Huang By Isabella Fischer  on Unsplash Rest should feel natural. Instead, it feels earned or worse, undeserved. Even in moments of stillness, many of us experience guilt, the sense that we should be doing something more productive. This feeling is not accidental. It is learned. Sociologists describe modern society as one in which time has been moralized. Productivity is treated as virtue, and idleness as failure (Weber 1905). Under this logic, rest is not neutral. It requires...]]></description><link>https://acrossminds.wixstudio.com/acrossminds/post/why-we-feel-guilty-for-resting</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6967ff490d9b34c9e2928e64</guid><category><![CDATA[Anthropological Insights]]></category><pubDate>Tue, 03 Mar 2026 21:08:28 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d871c3_e3ff836540854949aecbecbd1292ff00~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Selina Huang</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why We Soften Our Language When We Are Afraid]]></title><description><![CDATA[By Selina Huang By Evgeni Tcherkasski  on Unsplash We rarely say what we mean directly when it matters most. Instead, we hedge. We say kind of, maybe, I was just wondering, or this might sound stupid, but. Our sentences shrink, soften, and trail off. This is not a flaw in communication. It is a psychological response to emotional risk. In linguistics, these softeners are called hedges. They reduce the force of an utterance, creating distance between the speaker and the statement (Lakoff...]]></description><link>https://acrossminds.wixstudio.com/acrossminds/post/why-we-soften-our-language-when-we-are-afraid</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6967fd050d9b34c9e29287e5</guid><category><![CDATA[Neuropsychology & Expression]]></category><category><![CDATA[Psycholinguistics]]></category><pubDate>Tue, 03 Mar 2026 21:08:24 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d871c3_c7924112044946698e7fc7278b9cb63a~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Selina Huang</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Illusion of Emotional Closure]]></title><description><![CDATA[By Selina Huang By iwin  on Unsplash We often say we want closure. Closure from a breakup, a friendship that faded, a loss that never fully resolved. We imagine it as a moment: a final conversation, an apology, a clear explanation after which the pain will neatly end. But psychologically, closure is less of a destination and more of a comforting myth. Human beings are narrative creatures. We understand our lives as stories with beginnings, middles, and endings. Psychologist Dan McAdams argues...]]></description><link>https://acrossminds.wixstudio.com/acrossminds/post/the-illusion-of-emotional-closure</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6967f9ca6ae8988b73fb53e9</guid><category><![CDATA[Neuropsychology & Expression]]></category><pubDate>Sat, 24 Jan 2026 22:18:02 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d871c3_62c11e534a854d7f9814c8d659a5e4e3~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_800,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Selina Huang</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why We Explain Ourselves Online More Than in Real Life]]></title><description><![CDATA[By Selina Huang By Sumup  on Unsplash Online, we explain everything. Why we said something. What we meant. Who we are. A single post can come with paragraphs of clarification, disclaimers, and emotional context. Yet in real life, we often let things pass without explanation. Why does the digital world make us feel the need to justify ourselves so much? One reason is permanence. Psycholinguist Naomi Baron notes that digital communication creates an “archival anxiety,” the awareness that our...]]></description><link>https://acrossminds.wixstudio.com/acrossminds/post/why-we-explain-ourselves-online-more-than-in-real-life</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6967fb21bbaf501a67d9183a</guid><category><![CDATA[Neuropsychology & Expression]]></category><pubDate>Sat, 24 Jan 2026 22:17:58 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d871c3_9ad48838c6f342e28b902b369f151ebf~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_816,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Selina Huang</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why We Talk to Ourselves: The Hidden Science of Inner Speech]]></title><description><![CDATA[By Selina Huang By Mathieu Stern  on Unsplash We talk to ourselves more than we talk to anyone else. Sometimes it’s a whisper in the mind: Did I lock the door?   You can do this.   Don’t forget your lines.  Other times it’s a full internal conversation, rehearsing future moments or replaying past ones. Psycholinguists call this inner speech , and it shapes far more of our thinking than we realize. Lev Vygotsky, one of the earliest theorists of inner speech, argued that talking to ourselves is...]]></description><link>https://acrossminds.wixstudio.com/acrossminds/post/why-we-talk-to-ourselves-the-hidden-science-of-inner-speech</link><guid isPermaLink="false">694a758da8070c52710cb9e0</guid><category><![CDATA[Psycholinguistics]]></category><pubDate>Wed, 14 Jan 2026 20:44:27 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d871c3_67945722ba7d477f8c64992866cdd1fa~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Selina Huang</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Language of Love: Why Certain Words Feel More Emotional Than Others]]></title><description><![CDATA[By Selina Huang By Bekky Bekks  on Unsplash Why do some words hit us harder than others? Why does “I miss you”  feel tender, while “miss u”  feels hollow? Why do certain languages carry emotions we can’t translate: such as Portuguese saudade , Korean han , Japanese komorebi ? The answer lies in the psycholinguistics of emotional language: the way words shape, intensify, and even create our feelings. Emotion isn’t just experienced; it’s articulated. Research shows that labeling emotions using...]]></description><link>https://acrossminds.wixstudio.com/acrossminds/post/the-language-of-love-why-certain-words-feel-more-emotional-than-others</link><guid isPermaLink="false">694a7346e77310757c2ef5b4</guid><category><![CDATA[Psycholinguistics]]></category><pubDate>Wed, 14 Jan 2026 20:44:22 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d871c3_17ae3b1679af4942a93233c228ec7ebd~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Selina Huang</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why We Cannot Stop Fidgeting Tangles]]></title><description><![CDATA[By Selina Huang By William Warby  on Unsplash It starts with a twist. The Tangle, a looping plastic toy that bends and clicks in the hand, has taken over TikTok as the latest fidget style. At first glance, it seems like just another collectible trend: bright, cheap, and endlessly rearrangeable. But the Tangle’s viral success reveals something deeper about our relationship to stress, attention, and the quiet we need in a world that rarely lets us pause. Fidgeting used to be labeled as...]]></description><link>https://acrossminds.wixstudio.com/acrossminds/post/why-we-cannot-stop-fidgeting-tangles</link><guid isPermaLink="false">690c060cfd9ea664b1e3c663</guid><category><![CDATA[Neuropsychology & Expression]]></category><pubDate>Tue, 23 Dec 2025 10:28:23 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d871c3_6729cdd766dd419490c91844343b2c6d~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Selina Huang</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[“Main Character Energy” and the Economics of Attention]]></title><description><![CDATA[By Selina Huang By Jacob Von Bank  on Pexels “Romanticize your life.” “You’re the main character.” These phrases flood social media with reels where sunlight hits a coffee cup just right. What began as a confidence trend has become a defining cultural mood. It is the idea that life feels meaningful when it is narrated like a movie. But beneath the pastel affirmations and cinematic edits lies a deeper question: why do we crave being the “main character,” and what does it reveal about how...]]></description><link>https://acrossminds.wixstudio.com/acrossminds/post/main-character-energy-and-the-economics-of-attention</link><guid isPermaLink="false">690c089c8de3a65c6f2f9d59</guid><category><![CDATA[Neuropsychology & Expression]]></category><pubDate>Tue, 23 Dec 2025 10:28:07 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d871c3_55139fb1a1f940b496c2f2d24d9e3177~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Selina Huang</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Do Pets Think Like Us? ]]></title><description><![CDATA[By Selina Huang By Krista Mangulsone  on Unsplash When your dog tilts her head or your cat stares at you with unblinking eyes, it’s hard...]]></description><link>https://acrossminds.wixstudio.com/acrossminds/post/do-pets-think-like-us</link><guid isPermaLink="false">68cc77b8a1138fa0ac048ea2</guid><category><![CDATA[Neuropsychology & Expression]]></category><pubDate>Thu, 06 Nov 2025 02:38:11 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d871c3_f1f58e4a101040dfbb04e16f9a993ed1~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Selina Huang</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Economics of Generosity: Why Do We Give Without Expecting a Return?]]></title><description><![CDATA[By Selina Huang By ua_Bob_Dmyt_ua  on Unsplash Why do humans give without expecting anything back? At first glance, generosity seems...]]></description><link>https://acrossminds.wixstudio.com/acrossminds/post/the-economics-of-generosity-why-do-we-give-without-expecting-a-return</link><guid isPermaLink="false">68cc74884658226ab7314a73</guid><category><![CDATA[Anthropological Insights]]></category><pubDate>Thu, 06 Nov 2025 02:38:07 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d871c3_ea4b967ff82c4aaf9877dbebcd194726~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_853,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Selina Huang</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[A.I. Usage at Westminster]]></title><description><![CDATA[By Finn O'Shaughnessy By Aidin Geranrekab  on Unsplash Artificial intelligence has seen a meteoric rise in the past five years, going from science fiction to billions of people’s fingertips. According to Computing, a scientific journal from the UK, there has been a rise from 451 million queries per day asked to ChatGPT in June of 2024, to 2.6 billion daily a year later. There are 700 million active weekly users in the world, but how many are there in our school? At Westminster, which hosts...]]></description><link>https://acrossminds.wixstudio.com/acrossminds/post/a-i-usage-at-westminster</link><guid isPermaLink="false">68f51eed6bef380dfdcccc06</guid><category><![CDATA[Neuropsychology & Expression]]></category><pubDate>Sun, 19 Oct 2025 18:57:50 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d871c3_06b39e84cb7a42cdb4984e5eb26f89a1~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Selina Huang</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why Do We Write Poems?]]></title><description><![CDATA[By Marco Zheng By Katharina Bill  on Unsplash Coming back from summer vacation, you feel both refreshed and faintly miserable. The break is over, the work begins again, and the hallways smell of printer ink and coffee. But the worst part isn’t the return to routine; it’s opening your phone. There they are. The pictures. Turquoise oceans. Croissants by the Eiffel Tower. “Can’t believe I’m finally here!!!” written in looping fonts over sunsets. OMG, this place is gorgeous! I want to have my...]]></description><link>https://acrossminds.wixstudio.com/acrossminds/post/why-do-we-write-poems</link><guid isPermaLink="false">68f526ac04b472953c76bda6</guid><category><![CDATA[Psycholinguistics]]></category><category><![CDATA[Neuropsychology & Expression]]></category><pubDate>Sun, 19 Oct 2025 18:57:36 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d871c3_0a5339db672a42738e57fc470b6ede8c~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Selina Huang</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why We Buy Brands: Identity, Signaling, and the Economics of Logos]]></title><description><![CDATA[By Selina Huang Photo by Umut Sarıalan  on Pexels Every time we choose a sneaker with a noticeable logo, carry a designer bag, or drive a...]]></description><link>https://acrossminds.wixstudio.com/acrossminds/post/why-we-buy-brands-identity-signaling-and-the-economics-of-logos</link><guid isPermaLink="false">68c37317a1371026d6add208</guid><category><![CDATA[Neuropsychology & Expression]]></category><category><![CDATA[Anthropological Insights]]></category><pubDate>Thu, 18 Sep 2025 21:33:23 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d871c3_1b76709f801f46f48d3fa2a07c3d4e57~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Selina Huang</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why Do Humans Gossip?]]></title><description><![CDATA[By Selina Huang Photo by Vitolda Klein  on Unsplash When we think of gossip, we often picture idle chatter or hurtful rumors whispered...]]></description><link>https://acrossminds.wixstudio.com/acrossminds/post/why-do-humans-gossip</link><guid isPermaLink="false">68c37a02a1371026d6adea77</guid><category><![CDATA[Neuropsychology & Expression]]></category><pubDate>Thu, 18 Sep 2025 21:33:19 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d871c3_ff0c6145d402440389e8b54935591f28~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Selina Huang</dc:creator></item></channel></rss>