Psychology in Everyday Life: The Psych Files

Almost everyone has heard of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, her book On Death and Dying, and her five stages of grief. But are these stages accurate? Could the five stages of grief actually be doing more harm than good? Are they helping us to better understand what dying people go through or are they making it more difficult for us to truly understand and relate to them? Find out in this episode of The Psych Files.

What does the movie Shrek have to do with labeling, the DSM-V and the self-fulfilling prophecy? In this episode I take a close look at the well-known Rosenhan study. This was the study in which "pseudopatients" pretend to hear voices and on the basis of this they get admitted to psychiatric centers. Then they were told to act "normally". It took an average of 19 days for these "pseudopatients" to be discharged from the hospital and even then they were diagnosed as "schizophrenia in remission".

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, which other Facebook users saw more negative posts. How did this affect these users? Did those who say negative posts become more negative and vice versa? The answer is that the research indicates that some of them - though a very, very few of them - did subsequently write posts that were similar to the ones that saw on their News Feed. How big of an effect is this? Is it unethical? Does agreeing to Facebook's Terms of Use constitute "informed consent". I examine these questions in this episode of The Psych Files.

Why do some conspiracy theories seem to have so much evidence to support them? Well, that's because if you look hard enough at any event, and you don't have any particular theory before you start looking, you're eventually going to find something. And you'll probably think that thing is AMAZING. This is what careful thinkers and researchers have to learn: if you're going to find something truly amazing, you have to make your predictions FIRST. In this episode I talk about how we can be fooled by conspiracies.

Do subliminal messages in self-help tapes really work? There actually is some evidence that people can be influenced by subliminal messages. Can your self-esteem be raised with subliminal tapes? Can subliminal persuasion help you lose weight? Are there subliminal messages in Disney files? Are there subliminal messages in advertising that can make you buy certain products? These questions answered once and for all at The Psych Files podcast.

Have to memorize lines for a play or musical? There are a lot of techniques. Let me tell you about a few that are backed by science. I've been involved in the theatre for many years and I've done a lot of memorizing of both lines and song lyrics. Typically, actors and singers use repetition - and don't get me wrong - that works, but there are other ways to get those lines into your head. Ever heard of interleaving? How about using the Method of Loci (often called the Memory Palace) to memorize the sequence of an entire play? Impossible? Nope. Let's take a look.

How many scientific studies find their inspiration from a parable in the bible? Well, this one does and for my 50th episode I’ll go over a very interesting study based on the Good Samaritan parable. We’ll take another look at the topic of bystander intervention by asking the question: are people more likely to help someone if they are thinking “pious” thoughts at the time?

We tend to believe our memories are accurate, but they are far from it. The Supreme Court is finally beginning to realize this, now we even may have A physiological marker for false memories. What we remember is a hodge-podge, a patchwork of images, stories, and bits and pieces from our past (what some researchers refer to as the constructive nature of memory). In this episode I describe some of the very interesting research showing how our memories can be manipulated in surprising ways. Learn why you loved asparagus as a kid (really you did, really).

Kitty Genovese: what you know about what happened to her is wrong. Kitty Genovese was repeatedly attacked while others watched and did nothing - right? Wrong. While the story lead to a long and successful line of research in the area of bystander intervention and diffusion of responsibility, the facts of the story are incorrect. What are the facts behind the Kitty Genovese case and if groups are so unlikely to help, how do you explain how people came together to help at 911? Let's take another look at the legacy of this famous story in this episode.

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 on mars” that so many people are seeing. I would love it if we had solid proof that there was life on Mars. So far we have “pretty darn good” evidence that the conditions were right for life on Mars.