Psychology in Everyday Life: The Psych Files

In this first "Psych Files Brief" episode, we look at whether swearing actually reduces your sensation of pain (ever stub your toe?), whether or not vertical stripes actually do make you look thinner (no surprise - the answer is no), whether you're more likely to run up that credit card when you're feeling low, and why is it (and when is it) that yawns become contagious?

Borderline Personality Disorder is a difficult disorder to understand and treat.  Briefly, people who suffer from BPD tend to have a heightened sensitivity to rejection.  When they feel that they are being rejected they can react with strong feelings of anger.  Their emotions can be very intense and vary widely during the day.  This can also make their relationships very unstable.  They can also be very impulsive.  However, a recent fascinating piece of research used a mobile device and what's called an "experience sampling" technique to gain further insight into what it is like to have BPD.  In this episode I discuss that research and then wonder what else we might be able to learn as our mobile devices become even more powerful. Resources on Borderline Personality Disorder The Fight Within Us   ESP: The Experience Sampling Program   Just Helping People

Feeling guilty about not being a "Tiger Mom" (or Dad)?  Let me give you 3 reasons why you don't have to feel that way.  Get yourself ready for the next time that someone says that you (or parents in general) have to be tougher on our kids.  You've probably heard about the authoritarian parenting style advocated by Amy Chua in her Tiger Mom book.  Lots of Americans think she has good point that the problems with American kids is that they are being raised with too much leeway, and that we're not being tough enough on them.  The reason, they say, that our Math scores are too low is that we're not strict enough and we don't have high expectations for our children.  Are they right?  Or are there other ways that our children are being successful that we don't take into account?  If you're feeling discouraged about parenting let me raise your spirits.

Americans spend billions of dollars on self-help products each year, but does someone else hold the answers to your questions about what your life is all about?  Join me as I discuss a fascinating book called If You Meet The Buddha On The Road, Kill Him!.  We also see how a wonderful recent broadway musical, The Drowsy Chaperone has some very intriguing things to say about life.  Could it be that there is some existentialism in that musical?  Listen to this episode to find out.

In this video you’ll learn exactly how the phonetic alphabet system works. In the last episode you saw me memorize – almost perfectly – a list of 20 top sci-fi movies. How did I do it? I’ll show you how each number becomes a letter, each letter becomes a word and each word becomes an image that will help you memorize just about any size list. Skeptical? You won’t be after seeing exactly how the phonetic alphabet works.

Curious about EMDR? Listen to this interview with the founder of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, Dr. Francine Shapiro talk about EMDR and how it is different from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).  This is an intriguing and unique type of therapy and if you want to learn more about it you've come to the right place.   EMRD Institute EMDR Humanitarian Assistance Programs   Rewrite the textbooks: Findings challenge conventional wisdom of how neurons operate

Do you have a dull job?  Wonder how it can be made more motivating?  That's the challenge - how can we make jobs that are typically not much fun (like an assembly line job) more interesting to do?  This is one of the challenges facing I/O psychologists and in this episode I discuss the Job Characteristics theory by Hackman and Oldham and apply it to assembly line jobs in China where your iPhone is made and where a record number of suicides have occurred over the past few years. Can we use job redesign to make such jobs more tolerable?  1 Million Workers. 90 Million iPhones. 17 Suicides. Who’s to Blame?

You've probably heard that the so called "Lie Detector" test (the polygraph)doesn't actually detect when you've lied, but rather just takes some physiological measures from your body and these have to be interpreted by experts.  Sometimes those experts make mistakes.  Join me as I describe a psychological study that tested a new kind of "Lie Detector" - drawings.  This study involved Agents, Missions, an Interception, and a mysterious "package".  This is psychology?  You better believe it. 

In this episode I put Jack Lalanne "on the couch".  I take selections from several of his vidoes and see what they reveal about his personality.  He was clearly passionate about exercise, but what drove this passion?  What was his underlying motivation?  I suggest that his relationship with his father was crucial to his passion for exercise and fitness.  Join me as I do a little armchair psychoanalysis of Jack Lalanne.Jack Lalanne The Ripped and the Righteous