Menu
Aeon
DonateNewsletter
SIGN IN

Psychology

Essays and videos offering insights into the self, relationships, cognition and neuroscience
Save

video

Rituals and celebrations

Meet the entrepreneur whose business is crafting perfect peak experiences

12 minutes

Save

video

Personality

Why cleaning up crime scenes requires a rare mix of grit and empathy

9 minutes

Save

video

Personality

Why one man spent 15 years in ‘self-imposed’ island exile

7 minutes

Save

essay

Personality

The myth of mirrored twins

What do the lives of twins tell us about heritability, selfhood and the age-old debate between nature and nurture?

Gavin Evans

Save

video

Language and linguistics

A master palindromist spells out his 40-year ‘love affair with reversibility’

6 minutes

Save

essay

Teaching and learning

Learning styles don’t exist

A teaching approach that is based on students’ preferences sounds laudable. But this misunderstands how learning happens

Carl Hendrick

Save

essay

Personality

Born that way

Confident or shy, our temperament is mostly baked-in from birth. But how that influences our lives is up for grabs

Gina Mireault

Save

video

Family life

Fifty years ago, a train collided with Jack and Betty’s car. Here’s how they remember it

9 minutes

Save

video

Subcultures

The cast of ‘misfit toys’ who keep life on an idyllic tourist island afloat

7 minutes

Save

video

Technology and the self

One woman prepares for the risky solitude of Georgia O’Keeffe’s American West

8 minutes

Save

video

Ethics

An animator wonders: can you ever depict someone without making them a caricature?

10 minutes

Save

video

Personality

Why a journeyman boxer finds contentment in the art of losing

6 minutes

Save

video

Personality

Wesley wants to solve the rooftop mystery – but does he have what it takes?

14 minutes

Save

essay

Mood and emotion

When hope gets in the way

Hope is usually seen as a positive agent of change that spares us from pain. But it can also undermine healing and growth

Santiago Delboy

Save

video

Subcultures

Bad puns, regrettable costumes, and other joys of collecting kitschy album art

13 minutes

Save

video

Personality

Art students divulge (and animate) the dating pet peeves they find unforgivable

3 minutes

Save

video

Work

What is it like to clean the world for tomorrow while the rest of a city sleeps?

7 minutes

Save

video

Neurodiversity

What it’s like to have aphantasia, the inability to visualise images in the mind’s eye

14 minutes

Save

video

Making

How sky-high dreams launched one man’s audacious life in homemade rocketry

5 minutes

Save

video

Life stages

A filmmaker reflects on his adolescence with the help of some long-lost friends

9 minutes

Save

video

Childhood and adolescence

Want an unvarnished window into the world of kids? Try cutting their hair

15 minutes

Save

video

Personality

Meet the British bouncer in LA on an expired visa who has no time for immigrants

10 minutes

Save

video

Home

Eccentrics, artists and Luddites find community on a remote Scottish peninsula

26 minutes

Save

video

Values and beliefs

What would Sartre make of the footballer who stood by his decision to kick a fan?

3 minutes