Have you seen the musical The Fantasticks? Not only does it have wonderful music but it also has pearls of wisdom. Oh yea, and gender issues. In this episode I talk about the psychology inside this great show. Resources The FantasticksTeaching skepticismIt turns out money can kind of buy happiness after allGerman amusement park acts after uproar over ‘swastika carousel’Oh … Read More
Ep 305: In the Movies, Why Does the Woman Always Have to Die? And Other Gender Stereotypes
What can we learn from an old, dusty book I found in the basement? Well, if that book is about gender role stereotypes then there’s a lot of things to uncover that explain why boys and girls act the way they do. In this episode we get an example of qualitative research by really diving into the book called … Read More
Ep 285: Ketamine and Depression, Raven Intelligence, and Those Darn Fidget Spinners
What are psychologists talking about this week? Well, we’re fighting back against the unbelievable claims made by the marketers of fidget spinners (does the toy really help people with ADHD, PTSD and anxiety?), we’re astounded by the results of research on the intelligence of ravens (apparently the birds get resentful if you don’t treat them fairly), the latest news on … Read More
Ep 261: Which of These Scientific Terms Are You Using Incorrectly?
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 246: Why Replications Sometimes Don’t Agree with the Original Study
What’s the connection between life on Mars and the need to properly replicate scientific studies? Well, replicating a study one time and not finding the results the original researchers find is NOT proof that the original study was a fraud. Let’s be clear about what replication really means. Here’s a bunch of examples. This topic ties into the so-called “woman … Read More
Ep 245: The Results of the Reproducibility Project: Incentives Out of Whack
Have you heard that about 100 Psychology studies were replicated and only about 1/3 confirmed the original findings? Why did this happen? Well, one reason has to do with incentives that are out of whack. The “real world” of scientific research is far from the lone researcher looking for the truth. And the other reason has to do with, well, … Read More
Ep 243: Did Your Therapy Really Work?
If you have been in therapy you want to believe it “worked”. We all do. And hopefully it did have a positive effect on you. But how do you know? How do therapists know if what they’re doing really has resulted in improvements in their clients? Yes, we have controlled studies for many treatments which give us confidence that these … 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 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
Ep 221: The Facebook Study on Your Emotions: Ethical or Not?
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 the study). How did this … Read More
