Psychology facts you never knew. (Shutterstock)

People and what makes them tick is always a fascinating area to explore, but even those who think they have a good grip on psychology don’t know it all.

The fact of the matter is that much of the human persona remains to be explained; we often know why people do things, but every so often a curve ball gets thrown out there and behavior simply can’t be explained. At best we can speculate on what might be going on with someone, but much of psychology is based on case studies and then the rules applied to the general population.

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So what have we discovered so far about the human psyche? Check out these 5 amazing psychology facts on what makes people do the things they do:

• We all have the capacity for evil: We generally try to live our lives in accordance to the old saying of “Do no harm,” but the truth of it is that no matter how righteous of a person we think we are, everyone has the capacity for evil. This was demonstrated in a 1970′s experiment considered one of the most notorious of all time. A group of individuals were placed in a mock prison setting with half assigned to be guards and the others inmates. What the data revealed was no matter how “good” of a person an individuals appeared to be at the start of the test, those who were placed in complete control over the others eventually exhibited “evil” characteristics, often torturing their prisoners both mentally and physically.
• Love really is all that matters: Think those people who say love is all that matters are crazy? In the world of psychology it turns out they are correct. A 75-year Harvard grant study found people who had love in their lives were the happiest overall, and they only needed love in their lives to maintain that happiness. That meant that someone could lose everything materialistic yet retain love and that individual would rate his or her happiness on a higher scale compared to someone who had everything but no love in their life.
• We lie to ourselves all the time: The human brain needs things to make sense, and according to a report from the Huffington Post, that means we often lie to ourselves. This process is one of justification within the mind; it is the attempt to always leave ourselves with a positive feeling when we do something that may not be so instantly gratifying. An example of this was in a social experiment involving employment. Individuals were asked to do dull tasks, like turning a wooden peg for an hour, and were then compensated $1 or $20. Those who were given the $20 said the task was well worth their time while those given the $1 said it wasn’t worth their time–but they were okay with it because it was fun. Was it really fun? The tasks were designed to be boring, and most of the $1 group were just trying to justify the loss of time.
• We don’t notice the most obvious things: It might surprise you to know, but the mind is very selective about what it chooses to notice and/or recall. This is because the brain is always trying to manage it’s resources, and there is no point in retaining useless information gathered through every moment of the day. What this means is that we often are oblivious to what’s right in front of us, and this can be seen in an experiment from Harvard and Kent State Universities. Volunteers were asked to approach strangers on the street to ask for directions. During the brief conversation two other volunteers would walk between the conversing duo carrying something large that would momentarily block their view of each other. During this moment the volunteer asking for directions was switched with someone else–and approximately 50 percent of people on the street never noticed the substitution.

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Other amazing psychology facts

Think that’s all there is to the amazing world of psychology? Check out these other quick facts from Deca Fact:

• The human brain can sense someone staring at you even while you are asleep.
• People spend up to half of their awake time daydreaming.
• People are most likely to return a lost wallet if there is a picture of a baby inside of it.
• You can’t read while in a dream because it require two areas of the brain that cannot function at the same time.
• The inability to understand sarcasm can be the warning sign of early mental disease.
• People who have multiple pillows are often lonely or depressed.
• Touching a teddy bear can make people feel less lonely.

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