Shock and Sadness How has the mental health community reacted to Robin Williams’ suicide? I’ve been reflecting on my own reaction as well as reading blog posts and news articles from other mental health professionals. Here’s my take on what we’re thinking. Like everyone else, mental health professionals found themselves saddened and speechless at Williams’ […]
A humorous way to learn about the Freudian defense mechanisms (actually elaborated by Anna Freud) of Displacement, Denial, Sublimation, Reaction Formation, and Projection. A little dream analysis thrown in. Who knows? Maybe Sigmund Freud would have been good at customer service…(technically, this is a video version of episode 209). Â Â
[This] dispute … has been settled to the satisfaction of all neutral observers from journal editors to manuscript reviewers to … textbook authors who have seen our articles. The argument is settled…..I would turn to the question of why it took the field of psychology 5+ years to get this sorted out.” What was […]
How many times have you wanted to remember a joke at a party but you just can’t? Well, there IS a way to remember jokes and I have got 4 jokes for you along with a mnemonic to help you remember all 4 of them. I challenge you to listen to these 4 jokes, then […]
You may have heard that Facebook manipulated the content of user’s New Feeds during January of 2012 so that some users saw more positive posts than others, while other Facebook users saw more negative posts. They interpret this as an indication of Social Contagion on a massive scale (almost 700,000 Facebook users were part of […]
In episode 217 I asked you to be frank with yourself: Does your animal really think? It’s easy to believe they do, but if you’re going to study this issue scientifically you have to eliminate our human tendency to anthropomorphize – to want to believe that animal actions are motivated by internal states. Articles Mentioned […]
Surveys find that psychologists tend to align themselves with a liberal political orientation. Why is that? Are liberal-minded people drawn to human service professions or is there something about working in human services that causes people to become more liberal in their political views? In this episode I propose a few ideas that I think […]
Guess what? There are a good number of positives to growing older. Let’s put aside all the negative stereotypes of older folks and realize that they can demonstrate a surprising level of “coolness” about life. There’s a certain perspective you get when you’re older that’s enviable. Older folks have passed many of life’s challenges and […]
Do you have a tip jar at work? Here’s one way to use a little psychology to increase the likelihood that customers will put a little money in there: Set out not one but two tip jars Label the jars with two competing themes Okay, so what do I mean by “competing themes”? What you […]
It’s easy to find videos on the web of animals showing what appears to be some pretty smart behavior. But is it really “smarts”? How can you tell? In this episode I’ll point out examples that look like intelligence but probably aren’t – as well as an example of animal behavior that is really hard […]