The Psychology of Blogging

What Does Your Facebook Profile Reveal About Your Personality?

Link for this Post: What Does Your Facebook Pages Reveal About How You Are -- Cognitive Daily

Here is an excerpt from the artilce:

Recently a woman had her sick leave benefits based on a diagnosis of clinical depression terminated because of a few pictures she posted on her Facebook page showing her smiling at a birthday party and enjoying a trip to the beach. Was this a fair assessment of her medical condition? Probably not--people with clinical depression can have moments of genuine joy or elation, and even sad people can fake a smile for a photo.

But regardless of whether a few photos posted online are sufficient evidence for a medical diagnosis, there is a larger question: Does a person's online persona match up to their real-world personality? Since most young people--and a growing number of older adults--maintain some sort of web or online social networking presence, it's important to know whether the digital world is a good representation of the real world.

Pocket Full of Words by Holly Lisle

Link for this post : Pocket Full of Words by Holly Lisle.

Holly Lisle is  author of Midnight Rain, Last Girl Dancing; Talyn; and Locus fantasy bestsellers Diplomacy of Wolves, Vengeance of Dragons, Courage of Falcons, and Fire in the Mist, as well as many more novels.

Here site is quite elaborate including an extensive catalog of books and workshops, an online community and much more.

Bloggers can make money, but most keep day jobs -- csmonitor.com

Link:  for this Post: "Bloggers can make money, but most keep day jobs: The rise of 'contextual advertising' has created a 21st-century version of royalties" By Ben Arnold, Christian Science Monitor.

Here is a snippit from this Christian Science Montior story about making money on the internet through blogging:

The rise of what's known as contextual advertising has created a 21st-century version of royalties that's reaching deep into the ranks of amateurs and hobbyists. It points to a future where many people will moonlight online as small-time creators for a little extra income, with a few finding fame and fortune along the way.

"A lot of people say it's sort of like a little investment. They write something every night before they go to bed, and another page on their website gets added. And the more pages they've got, the more chance they've got of earning a little bit of money," says Darren Rowse, the webmaster of problogger.net, a site that helps bloggers improve their income.       

He says he makes six figures a year blogging, when factoring in all his sites and the consulting gigs they generate. "You put something out there," he adds, "and it has the potential to earn money forever. And in that way it sort of is like a royalty."

Note: the image at the top of the story is  problogger's Darren Rowse from his blog

             

The Psychology of Cyberspace Blog Companion

Link for this Post: The Psychology of Cyberspace Blog Companion.

John Suler has had an online book The Psychology of Cyberspace since the early days of the Web. I wrote about it in a post earlier this year.

Now he is publishing a weblog companion. Here is an excerpt from the blog about the "academic" study of cyberspace psychology:

What has changed dramatically since the first publication of this online book is the academic study of cyberspace. A decade ago there were only a handful of us doing what we called “cyberpsychology.” Now there are hundreds, with researchers specializing in particular aspects of online behavior. New journals devoted to Internet research have been created, while mainstream psychology journals are accepting more articles about online behavior. Azy Barak’s reference list is an excellent portal into this world of cyberpsychology.

With this boom in research comes a variety of important questions. When can our traditional psychological theories explain online behavior? Under what circumstances do we need new theories? As is always the case in the history of any topic area within psychology, new theories will compete with each other. Only time and research will reveal which ones apply best to which phenomena. We must be on the lookout for concepts that are new and good, while remembering that what’s new isn’t necessarily good, and what’s good isn’t necessarily new.

Unfortunately, the seriousness psychology now pays to Internet research isn’t always matched by the seriousness it pays to online scholarly publications. Such publications too often are considered second class citizens, or they are not considered “publications” at all. An odd kind of double-standard seems to have evolved. Whereas cyberspace is considered a rich social/informational environment for gathering scholarly social science data, it often is not regarded as a rich environment for publishing scholarly research.

You can read the rest of this post and follow the blog at the link above.

PsyBlog: Psychology Blog

Link for this Post:PsyBlog: Psychology Blog.

Here is how this blog and blogger talk about themselves:

My name is Jeremy Dean and I am currently studying for an MSc in Research Methods in Psychology at University College London hope to go on and obtain a PhD. My first degree was in Law and before studying psychology I had a career in the Internet industry and spent a couple of years working on fiction and non-fiction.

When I started this blog, there weren't too many psychology bloggers around and there was a need for people to talk about the research that was being reported in the news. Things have changed - take a look at my 'blogroll' - and so my focus has shifted.

This blog now concentrates more on the ideas that specifically interest me like unity in psychological knowledge. Rather than following the fashion, I'm looking to dig a little deeper under the surface.

Find out more about this blog at the link at the top of the post.

Blogging for Personal Growth by Steve Pavlina

Link for this post Blogging for Personal Growth.

Steve Pavlina who features a blog on Personal Development for Smart People tells how blogging has become a growth path for him Here are a couple of excerpts from the post:

When I started this site 16 months ago, my goal was to help people with their personal development.  And based on the thousands of pieces feedback I’ve received since then, that expectation is certainly being realized.  However, what I wasn’t fully prepared for was the massive amount of personal growth I would experience as a result of this decision.  I expected there would be a symbiotic relationship that would provide additional fuel for my own growth, but the effect was far greater than I imagined.  Consequently, I now believe that blogging may be one of the best tools for personal growth

According to Technorati, three years ago there were less than half-a-million blogs.  Today there are over 27 million, and this figure continues to double every 5.5 months.  That’s some serious growth, and partly I’ve enjoyed riding this wave for the past 16 months.  Is this an opportunity that’s going to pass you by while you sit on the sidelines and watch, or would you like to become an active participant?

If you don’t yet have your own blog, I highly recommend starting one as a means of taking your personal growth to the next level.  The software is all free, so it won’t even cost you anything.  I use WordPress for this blog, and I highly recommend it.  A new version was recently released that makes it even easier to use.  Some web hosts such as Yahoo even automate the installation for you.  But if you don’t have your own web hosting account (or don’t want to pay for one), consider signing up with one of the free hosted services like WordPress.com, Blogger, Typepad, or LiveJournal.  Those are less flexible to customize (especially if you want to generate income), but they’re much easier to setup, and you don’t need a web hosting account to use them.

Read more at StevePavlina.Com: Personal Development for Smart People.

BLOGinality: weblogger personality types

link for this Post: BLOGinality: weblogger personality types.

Here is a bit about this blog personality test site:

What's your personality? How much do you know about yourself? Because many webloggers enjoy personality tests, this is a portal for your bloginality! Are people with a certain personality type more apt to take personality test? More importantly, are they more likely to have a weblog? You will find quite a bit of reference material here about personality tests, as well as a place for you to find other people who are the same personality as you!

The test itself is on this page.