Didn’t get the flu this past winter? Thank a psychologist. What? Well, it could be that a psychologist was involved in helping health care professionals to do what they know they need to do (but sometimes don’t): wash their hands. The issue here is persuasion and motivation: how to we get people to do something […]
How would you like to have an argument? Turns out that learning how to have a good argument might just be the best way to learn to think critically. In this episode I discuss a neat piece of research in which 7 and 8 year olds are taught how to effectively argue. And they do […]
“Hurt people, hurt people” – The Sanctuary Model Everyone was horrified to hear that an adolescent, Adam Lanza, walked into an elementary school and killed 20 children and 6 adults as well as killing himself. Many people have offered their view as to what was wrong with Adam and about what we could have done […]
Transference and countertransference are two key concepts in psychoanalysis and they are fascinating. If you’re interested in the therapy side of psychology – particularly psychoanalysis – this is the episode for you. Kerry Malawista, psychoanalyst and author, along with Anne Adeleman and Catherine Anderson, talks about their new book, “Wearing My Tutu To Analysis“. […]
In episode 183 I talked about what critical thinking is and why it’s important. Now we talk about why it’s so darn hard to teach and to use critical thinking in our everyday lives. In this episode I’ll discuss Dr. Daniel Willingham‘s advice to teachers on what they can do to effectively teach critical thinking […]
Why does it concern psychologists that the Texas GOP platform recently opposed the teaching of critical thinking? Most of us have been told since we were very young that critical thinking is very important. Psychologists certainly agree and a lot of time spent in most psychology classes is spent learning how to think critically. Why […]
Maybe you’ve heard of gamification, but how do you do it exactly? How do you use game principles to increase people’s motivation when they are doing everyday ordinary activities? Find out in this episode of The Psych Files when I show you how I would gamify an ordinary uHaul drive. Listen as I describe “uWin!”. […]
Let’s talk sports psychology. When you participate in a sport, do you talk to yourself? Do you try to “psych yourself up”, or do you give yourself instructions on how to hold a part of your body or how much energy to exert or when to hold back? This is the kind of self-talk that […]
What is your body position revealing about you? Some things are obvious – you probably know that crossed arms indicate a certain distrust. There are also flirting gestures that I’ll bet you think you know well (like women playing with their hair and men sticking out their chests), but what about your thumbs? My thumbs? […]