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Middle age
Middle age is the adulthood stage between young adulthood and old age, roughly 40 to 65, with no fixed biological boundary. Key markers include the debated U-shaped happiness nadir near age 50 and gradual physical changes such as presbyopia and sarcopenia.
Middle child syndrome
Middle child syndrome is a popular, hypothetical condition attributed to middle-born children, rooted in Alfred Adler's birth order theory. Large studies find no consistent personality effects, though a 2024 study found small prosocial-trait differences.
Midlife crisis
A midlife crisis, sometimes called a male midlife crisis, is a period of emotional turmoil in middle adulthood, coined by Elliott Jaques in 1965 and popularized in the 1970s.
Migrant labour in South Africa
Migrant labor in South Africa was a historical system in which black workers took short-term contracts in mines and cities while their families remained in rural reserves.
Migration background
Migration background (Migrationshintergrund) is a German-origin statistical category classifying people who, or whose parents, did not acquire German citizenship at birth; operationalized in the microcensus since 2005, criticized as an ethnic rather than migration category, and complemented since 2021 by immigration history.
Migration to the Chapare
Migration to the Chapare is the settlement of peasants from the Bolivian highlands in the Chapare, a tropical coca-growing region of Cochabamba, from the 1950s onward.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Hungarian-born University of Chicago psychologist, coined flow (1975, Beyond Boredom and Anxiety), the state of full absorption when challenge matches skill; founding figure of positive psychology.
Mike Barnicle
Mike Barnicle is an American journalist and political commentator who wrote over 4,000 columns for The Boston Globe. He resigned in 1998.
Mike Cernovich
Mike Cernovich (born 1977, Kewanee, Illinois) is an American lawyer, author, and pro-Trump internet personality behind Crime and Federalism, Danger and Play, Gorilla Mindset, and films Silenced and Hoaxed, known for Gamergate involvement, Pizzagate promotion, and the 2017 Susan Rice unmasking story.
Mike Ma
Mike Ma is the pen name of Mike Mahoney, American far-right ecofascist writer, author of Harassment Architecture and Gothic Violence and founder of the Pine Tree Party movement.
Mike Rothschild
Mike Rothschild is an American journalist and author specializing in conspiracy theories, known for The Storm Is Upon Us (2021) on QAnon and Jewish Space Lasers (2023); no relation to the banking family.
Mike Solana
Mike Solana is an American writer, chief marketing officer of Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, and founder and editor-in-chief of Pirate Wires, the tech-politics-culture media company launched from a 2020 newsletter; also organizer of Hereticon and author of Citizen Sim.
Mikhail Zygar (Михаил Викторович Зыгарь)
Mikhail Zygar (Михаил Викторович Зыгарь), born 1981, is a Russian journalist and author, founding editor-in-chief of TV Rain (Dozhd) and writer of All the Kremlin's Men, The Empire Must Die, and War and Punishment; now exiled, a declared foreign agent, and adjunct professor at Columbia's Harriman Institute.
Mildred and Richard Loving
Mildred and Richard Loving, a Black and Native American woman and a white man, married in Washington, D.C. in 1958, were exiled from Virginia, and won Loving v. Virginia (1967), which struck down U.S. bans on interracial marriage.
MILF
MILF, vulgar slang acronym for "Mother I'd Like to Fuck", describes an attractive middle-aged woman or mother; documented in 1992 slang research and popularized by the 1999 film American Pie, it became a major pornography category.
Milgram experiment
Milgram experiment: Stanley Milgram's 1961–1963 Yale obedience studies, also called Obedience to Authority, in which teachers delivered believed shocks up to 450 V; 82.5% continued past 150 volts, later reinterpreted as engaged followership.
Millennials
Millennials, or Generation Y, are the cohort born roughly 1981-1996 (Pew definition), named by Strauss and Howe in 1991. America's largest generation since 2019; best educated, most diverse, with lower wealth and delayed marriage than predecessors.
Millet (Ottoman Empire)
Millet, Ottoman Turkish from Arabic milla, was a term in the Ottoman Empire for a non-Muslim religious community, such as Orthodox Christians, Armenians, and Jews, with limited self-rule.
Million Man March
The Million Man March, a mass gathering of African American men on Washington's National Mall on October 16, 1995, called by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan; theme of atonement and responsibility, disputed attendance of 400,000 to over 1 million.
Milton William Cooper
Milton William Cooper, or Bill Cooper (1943-2001), American conspiracy theorist, radio host of The Hour of the Time, and author of the 1991 book Behold a Pale Horse, known for UFO and New World Order claims and death in an Arizona shootout.
Mimi Alford
Mimi Alford, born Marion "Mimi" Beardsley, is the American author of Once Upon a Secret (2012), a No. 1 New York Times bestseller describing her 1962-1963 affair with President John F. Kennedy while a nineteen-year-old White House press office intern.
Minahasan people
Minahasan people, also called the Manado people, are an Indigenous Christian ethnic group of North Sulawesi, Indonesia, formed from eight tribes united in the eighteenth century, speaking Minahasan Austronesian languages related to Philippine languages.
Minamoto clan (源氏)
Minamoto clan (源氏, Genji), Japanese aristocratic house created by Emperor Saga in 814 through dynastic shedding; its Seiwa Genji branch defeated the Taira in the Genpei War (1180–1185) and produced shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo, founder of the Kamakura shogunate.
Minangkabau people
Minangkabau: Muslim people of West Sumatra, Indonesia, about three million strong and the world's largest matrilineal society; women inherit houses and rice fields, men migrate (merantau), and adat coexists with Islam amid persistent gender asymmetries.
Mind games
Mind games are psychological manipulation tactics used to confuse, destabilize, or control others in relationships, families, and workplaces; key tactics include gaslighting, blame, negging, and silent treatment, with Eric Berne's concealed-motive transactions as the theoretical root.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness (Pali: sati) is present-moment awareness without judgment, rooted in Buddhism and adapted into secular MBSR and MBCT programs; evidence shows small-to-moderate benefits for stress, anxiety, and depression versus no treatment.
Mindfulness-based stress reduction
Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is an eight-week group program created by Jon Kabat-Zinn at UMass in 1979, combining secular meditation, mindful stretching, and daily home practice. Meta-analyses show moderate effects on stress, anxiety, and depression, and equivalence with CBT for depression and chronic pain.
Mindset
Mindset: Dweck's implicit-theories framework contrasting fixed mindset (intelligence innate) with growth mindset (intelligence improvable by effort); popularized by the 2006 book, with contested meta-analytic evidence on whether interventions raise academic achievement.
Mindset intervention
A mindset intervention is a psychological intervention teaching participants that abilities are malleable rather than fixed, aiming to change beliefs, motivation, persistence, and achievement.
Ministry of Women and Child Development
Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD), Government of India; apex ministry for women and children, separate from 30 January 2006; three scheme verticals Mission Shakti, Saksham Anganwadi & Poshan 2.0, Mission Vatsalya; 2025-26 budget Rs 26,890 crore.