The clothes you wear have powers...over your mind. Your wardrobe doesn't just affect the way others see you, but it affects the way you see yourself. That results in changes in perception, attention, behavior, and more. Learn what researcher Hajo Adam has to say about the phenomenon he discovered, enclothed cognition, and how you can use it to your advantage.Patreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart

Why do we sleep and why do we dream? Despite the fact that every human being spends roughly 1/3 of his or her life asleep, science has yet to crack the mystery of the phenomenon. Why do we sleep and dream? The answer for now is...we don't know. To learn more, we interview psychologist Richard Wiseman who has written a new book on sleep and dreaming that promises to help you get the most out of both based on what science has learned so far.Patreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart

In the 1950s, in an effort to better understand group conflict, a team of psychologists nearly turned a summer camp into Lord of The Flies. The story of how and why it was so easy to turn normal boys into bloodthirsty, warring tribes (and how those tribes eventually reconciled and became peaceful) can teach you a lot about a common mental phenomenon known as the illusion of asymmetric insight - something that helps keep you loyal to certain groups and alters the way you see outsiders. Later experiments revealed that if you imagine people's inner lives as icebergs with some things showing above the surface and some things hidden from view, that you have a tendency to believe most of your iceberg is hidden, while everyone else's is mostly visible. Scaled up, you also believe this about the groups to which you belong - yours are nuanced and complicated, theirs are simple and transparent (and dumb). This asymmetry of insight colors your interactions and decisions big and small. That's what we explore in this inbetweenisode of the YANSS Podcast.Patreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart

The problem with sorting out failures and successes is that failures are often muted, destroyed, or somehow removed from view while successes are left behind, weighting your decisions and perceptions, tilting your view of the world. That means to be successful you must learn how to seek out what is missing. You must learn what not to do. Unfortunately, survivorship bias stands between you and the epiphanies you seek. To learn how to combat this pernicious bias, we explore the story of Abraham Wald and the Department of War Math founded during World War II, and then we interview Wald's modern-day counterpart, Megan Price, statistician and director of research at the Human Rights Data Analysis Group who explains how she uses math and statistics to save lives and improve conditions in areas of the world suffering from the effects of war.Patreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart

In this inbetweenisode, Christina Draganich explains how she came up with the idea to research placebo sleep, and she tells us how anyone with the right guidance can use science to expand our understanding of the natural world. We also learn about the continuity field generated by the human brain.Patreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart

In this podcast, James Burke discusses the future of scarcity and abundance, while Matt Novak explores retro futurism. They analyze why we struggle to predict the future and how history shapes progress. Unveil the interconnectedness of inventions and societal impacts of technology. Delve into societal fragmentation in the digital age and the implications of living in isolated cyber worlds. Explore equality of opportunity and access to technology, along with unconscious brain responses to smoking-related stimuli.

How powerful is the placebo effect? After a good night’s sleep could a scientist convince you that you had tossed and turned, and if so, how would that affect your perceptions and behavior? What if a doctor told you that you had slept like a baby when in reality you had barely slept at all? Would hearing those words improve your performance on a difficult test? In this episode we learn the answers to these questions and more as we explore how research continues to unravel the mysteries behind the placebo effect and how it can drastically alter our bodies and minds. Our guest is Kristi Erdal, a psychologist at Colorado College who discovered placebo sleep along with one of her students, Christina Draganich. Draganich wondered if such a thing might exist after reading all the literature on placebos, and Erdal helped her create the research methods she used to test her hypothesis.Patreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart

In this podcast, Benjamin Franklin's ability to turn haters into fans through The Benjamin Franklin Effect is discussed. Learn how spreading harm leads to hate, while spreading kindness fosters camaraderie. The episode delves into the psychology behind behavior attitudes and the importance of critical thinking.

Guests Steven Novella and Jesse Walker discuss the allure and harm of conspiracy theories, the fascination with the JFK assassination, the importance of scientific literacy, and the cognitive limitations of social networks.

In this inbetweenisode I read an excerpt from my book, You Are Now Less Dumb, about a strange experiment in Michigan that tested the bounds of the self by throwing three very unusual men into a situation that won't likely be repeated ever again by science.Patreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart