The Psychologist Who Asked What Mystics Were For
William James judged mystical states by what they did for a life and not by where they came from. The method is generous, and it leaves the oldest question unanswered.
GRADFLIX Editors3 Qs · Hard
Psychology passages for CAT RC
Psychology is one of the most frequent RC genres: studies, biases, emotion, memory and the self. These essays give you the long, hedged, evidence-heavy prose of real passages, where the author's tone matters as much as the findings.
46 long-form psychology essays, written at the density of real CAT passages, each with CAT, XAT and GMAT-style questions and explanations. For real exam passages, practise the solved CAT RC PYQs; for a daily routine, see CAT RC practice.
All PsychologyCognitive PsychologyBehavioural PsychologySocial PsychologyDevelopmental PsychologyExistential PsychologyPsychoanalysisNeuroscienceAddictionAgeing & DeathConsciousnessFamily LifeLove & FriendshipMental HealthMood & EmotionNeurodiversityPersonalityPleasure & PainPsychiatry & PsychotherapySelf-improvementSex & SexualitySleep & DreamsSpiritualityTechnology & the SelfWellbeing
Sexiness Is Not a Property of the Body
Beauty can be catalogued but desire keeps slipping out of the list, which suggests that attraction lives in a relationship and not in a body.
GRADFLIX Editors4 Qs · Hard
The Paradox of the Richer Who Were Not Happier - An RC Inspired by IIM Indore
In 1974 an economist reported that nations grew richer without growing happier. Fifty years of argument have shown that the answer depends less on the money than on the question asked of the people who have it.
GRADFLIX Editors4 Qs · Hard
The Decision That Seemed to Come Before the Decider - An RC Inspired by IIM Indore
A famous experiment appeared to show that the brain commits to an action before a person knows they have chosen it, but a later reading suggests the evidence may be an artefact of how it was averaged.
GRADFLIX Editors4 Qs · Hard
The Marshmallow That Was Never Only About Willpower
A treat on a plate became the most famous test of character in modern psychology. A larger study and a cleverer experiment suggest that the children may have been answering a different question.
GRADFLIX Editors6 Qs · Medium
The Psychology of Being Confidently Wrong
The Psychology of Being Confidently Wrong
GRADFLIX Editors4 Qs · Hard
The Wisdom of Crowds
A Victorian scientist set out to prove that ordinary people judge badly and found a crowd that was almost exactly right. The trouble is what happens once the crowd starts to talk.
GRADFLIX Editors4 Qs · Hard
The Horse That Could Count and the Face That Did Not Know
A horse in Berlin tapped out sums to the delight of the crowds, and a psychologist later showed that the arithmetic belonged to the audience.
GRADFLIX Editors3 Qs · Hard
The Dancers of Strasbourg and the Cure That Fed the Plague
In the summer of 1518 a street in Strasbourg filled with people who could not stop dancing, and the official remedy may have made things worse.
GRADFLIX Editors2 Qs · Medium
The Thirty Eight Witnesses Who Were Not There - An RC Inspired by IIM Indore
A newspaper once told New York that dozens of neighbours watched a murder and did nothing. The story built a famous theory, and then the story itself began to fall apart.
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs · Hard
The Man Who Survived the Iron Rod and Outlived His Own Legend
Phineas Gage is the best known brain injury patient in history, and most of what is said about him is shakier than the textbooks admit. The more his case is studied, the less certain it becomes where a person actually lives.
Abhishek Leela Pandey3 Qs · Hard
The Mozart Effect Was Never About Mozart
A 1993 study of 36 students led a US governor to send classical music to every newborn in his state. The effect was small, short and probably not about Mozart at all.
Abhishek Leela Pandey6 Qs · Medium
The Stanford Prison Experiment Was Directed - An RC Inspired by IIM Indore
In 1971 a Stanford basement became a prison, and the world learned that ordinary people turn cruel when given power. The archive suggests that somebody told the guards what the experiment wanted to see.
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs · Hard
A Changed Brain Is Not a Damaged Brain
In 2014 a Berlin brain scan study linked heavy pornography use to a smaller reward region, and the headlines said the brain was shrinking. The study could not say that, and the argument it started is about meaning more than anatomy.
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs · Hard
The Sane Who Were Never Caught - An RC Inspired by IIM Indore
In 1973 a Stanford psychologist reported that psychiatrists could not tell healthy people from the mentally ill. Half a century later, the study itself is proving hard to tell from fiction.
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs · Hard
The Animal That Knows It Will Die: An RC Inspired by IIM Indore
Every civilisation in history has built monuments. Jeffrey Greenberg spent decades asking why. His answer changed how psychology thinks about culture, death, and what it means to be human.
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs
What Sherlock Holmes Gets Wrong About Thinking: An RC Inspired by IIM Indore
Holmes notices everything Watson misses. The passage argues this is not because he observes more. It is because he has a better theory of what is worth observing.
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs
What Happens When You Actually Change Your Mind: An RC Inspired by IIM Indore
Most arguments do not change minds. They change voiced positions. Genuine belief revision is neurologically different, phenomenologically distinct and far rarer than it appears.
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs
Polyamory
Is monogamy a biological destiny or a cultural invention? A philosophical exploration of polyamory, love, evolution, and the arithmetic of romance.
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs
Why We Want the Universe to Listen
Manifestation promises cosmic rewards, but psychology suggests belief changes us more than the universe. Where does science draw the line?
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs
The Smile That Leaves No Bruises
Toxic femininity isn't the opposite of masculinity but the corruption of feminine virtues into emotional coercion, guilt and invisible control.
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs
The Zipper You Don't Understand
Most people are certain they understand how a zipper works, until asked to explain it. The same gap shows up in political conviction.
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs
Why Every Family Edits a Child
Inspired by "Lost and Found" from the ALP Horror Universe by Abhishek Leela Pandey, this essay explores identity, memory, childhood and the hidden ways families shape who we become.
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs
The Forgotten Third of Our Lives
Why can't we remember our dreams? Discover how REM sleep, memory, and evolution shape the forgotten third of our lives.
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs
I Thought Everyone Saw the World This Way
A reflective essay on teenage love, mathematical thinking, and why I instinctively translated people, emotions, and the world into algebra.
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs
The Face on the Wall
Why do we see faces in walls and clouds? Explore pareidolia, pattern recognition, and the surprising psychology behind human perception.
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs
Molly
Can a pill make us kinder? The science of MDMA challenges everything we believe about empathy, morality, trauma and the chemistry of human connection.
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs
The Kama Sutra Was Never About Sex
The Kama Sutra was never just about sex. Discover how this ancient Indian text explored desire, relationships, happiness, and the art of living.
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs
The Pebble Is Not a Love Letter
A penguin's pebble looks like a gift of love. It may actually be a signal of competence—a clue to how human courtship really works.
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs
The Last Generation to Remember Boredom
Why boredom may be the most valuable mental state we have lost in the smartphone age, and what its disappearance means for creativity and selfhood.
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs
The Human Need for a Second Touch
A childhood struggle with Just-Right OCD reveals a deeper truth about why humans crave symmetry, closure, patterns, and meaning itself.
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs
Freud Was Wrong. Electra Was Right.
Psychology discarded the Electra Complex, yet literature never did. Why do daughters still struggle to inherit a father's legacy without losing themselves?
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs
Love Dies When Another Person Becomes Frictionless
Can AI replace human intimacy? This essay explores love, loneliness, artificial partners, and why friction may be essential to real relationships.
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs
The Technologization of Self-Discovery
How technology, algorithms and social media are reshaping self-discovery, identity, attention and human consciousness in the digital age.
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs
Dopamine Was Never About Pleasure
Neuroscience reveals dopamine is not the brain’s pleasure chemical but the engine of anticipation, addiction, motivation, and endless pursuit.
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs
Déjà Vu: The Familiarity of the Unlived
An exploration of déjà vu as an illusion, revealing how the brain constructs false familiarity and exposing the fragile, reconstructed nature of memory.
Abhishek Leela Pandey
The Seven Stages of Love: From Spark to Becoming
A concise philosophical reflection on the seven stages of love, tracing its journey from fleeting attraction to lasting transformation.
Abhishek Leela Pandey
Machiavellianism and the Price of Power
A concise reflection on Machiavellianism that shows how power reshapes morality, revealing a quiet tension between survival and integrity.
Abhishek Leela Pandey
The Mind on Paper: LSD and the Illusion of Reality
An exploration of LSD as a lens into the mind, arguing that psychedelics do not distort reality so much as reveal how perception itself is constructed.
Abhishek Leela Pandey
The “Good Girl” Tax: How the Madonna–Whore Complex Limits Professional Growth
An exploration of the “Good Girl Tax,” showing how the ancient Madonna–Whore archetype still shapes workplace expectations and quietly restricts women's professional advancement.
Abhishek Leela Pandey
The Soft Weapons of Toxic Femininity
A concise exploration of whether destructive patterns can emerge from traditionally feminine traits.
Abhishek Leela Pandey
The Industrialisation of Desire
Porn addiction is less a crisis of libido than a crisis of limitless novelty. In an age of algorithmic abundance, desire is no longer courted.
Abhishek Leela Pandey
Numerophilia: The Mind's Romance with Order
Why are we drawn to numbers? This essay explores numerophilia—the psychological comfort and philosophical depth behind our love for mathematical order.
Abhishek Leela Pandey
The Moral Weight of Perhapsing
When the scripts we inherit fail, we confront the unsettling fact that meaning is not discovered but made. In that fracture lies a quiet, difficult freedom.
Abhishek Leela Pandey
Haunted by Design: Why We See Ghosts in Empty Rooms
Ghosts may not haunt houses, but minds. This essay explores how perception, grief, and memory turn absence into presence.
Abhishek Leela Pandey
The Usefulness of an Existential Crisis
An existential essay on meaning, modern life, identity, freedom, and the quiet psychological crisis hidden beneath achievement and productivity.
Abhishek Leela Pandey4 Qs