Do you think you’re using the words “control group” correctly? You’re probably not. In fact, you’re probably also getting these terms wrong as well: “truth serum”, “lie detector”, “bystander apathy”, “personality type”, Oxytocin, “closure” and even the “scientific method”! In this episode I review some of the points made by Scott Lilienfeld and his colleagues regarding scientific terms that you’re … Read More
Ep 260: Kids Can’t Put Their Phones Down – How You Can Feel Better About It
Cell phones: they’re here and they’re not going away. So now it’s time to “stop worrying and learn to love them”. If you’re upset about how attracted teens are to their phones I’ll give you a few ideas that, hopefully, will make you feel better. After all, cellphones aren’t going away. Quite the opposite. They’re only going to get more … Read More
Ep 259: How Could You Have Missed That?
A conversation is a conversation whether it happens in person or in a car, right? Well, wrong. You can only attend to so many things at a time. We’ll find out how a passenger in your car gives you subtle cues to what you need to attend to while you’re driving – something a person on the phone could never … Read More
Ep 257: What IS in Baloney Anyway? Let’s Find Out Why You Eat What You Eat
I grew up eating baloney without ever giving a thought to where it came from. But psychology is all about reflecting on who you are, why you think the way you do and why you do what you do. So let’s explore our eating behavior: why do we think it’s weird or wrong when we hear that in some cultures … Read More
Ep 255: London Has a Problem and It’s a Job for a Psychologist
London needs help and only a person trained in psychology can fix this. There are just too many Londoners using their subway (the “tube”) and instead of standing side by side as they go up the escalator, people are doing what they always do – they stand single file on the right of the escalator so that people in a … Read More
Ep 248: Guest Host Bo Bennett on Dysrationalia
What is Dysrationalia? You’ve probably heard of a lot of intelligences – Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, Sternberg’s Triarchic theory of intelligence and Daniel Goldman’s Emotional Intelligence. In this episode, my first guest host Bo Bennett steps in to tell us about the work of psychologist Keith Stanovich’s work on “dysratinalia”. Do you know someone who seems quite intelligent but they … Read More
Ep 235: Want to Swap Bodies?
What if you could swap bodies with someone else? What would it be like to be someone of the opposite sex? A different race? We’re getting darn close to being able to do that with new techniques like the Rubber Hand Illusion, the Enfacement illusion, and now the Full body illusion. You can now virtually switch bodies with someone else … Read More
Ep 230: Questionable Research – With A Famous Psychologist Involved
Might you be able to rid yourself of an illness by “turning back the clock”? That is, by immersing yourself in a time in your life when you were not ill? We know that thinking about things in a positive way – which we sometimes call “reframing” can make us feel and act differently, and we know that the “placebo … Read More
Ep 229: What Makes a Song Popular? How We Detect Melody
Why are some songs popular? Guess what – psychologists actually know a lot of the answers. In this episode we’ll listen to excerpts from Leonard Cohen’s song Hallelujah, as well as Noisestorm’s Ignite, Adele’s Someone Like You, the Enterprise Theme from Star Trek, and even two pieces of music from the motion picture Koyaanisqatsi. We’ll especially deconstruct Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” … Read More
Ep 227: I Remember How I Felt (Or Do You)?
Do “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation” or are we actually pretty happy most of the time? As it turns out humans are far more resilient than you think. Ever heard of the term “affective forecasting“? It’s something we do every day and very often we make mistakes doing it. In this episode you’ll learn more about positive psychology … Read More
