Speaking of Psychology

As an adult, making new friends – and maintaining old friendships – can be tough. Life is busy and friends end up taking a backseat to other relationships and responsibilities. Dr. Marisa Franco, psychologist and friendship expert, talks about how to make new friends and strengthen and rekindle old friendship ties, why Americans’ friendship networks are shrinking, the differences between men’s and women’s friendships, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Super-recognizers have an extraordinary ability to recognize faces – they can pick faces they’ve seen only briefly out of a crowd and can recognize childhood acquaintances they haven’t seen in decades. Dr. Josh Davis, a professor of applied psychology at the University of Greenwich, and super-recognizer Kelly Desborough, discuss the origins of this ability, why you can’t train yourself to be a super-recognizer, how super-recognizers compare with facial-recognition algorithms, and why security organizations are interested in working with super-recognizers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’ve all had good reason to feel anxious over the past two years. But sometimes, anxiety is more than a normal response to stress. Anxiety disorders are among the most common of all mental health disorders, affecting an estimated 15% to 20% of people at some point in their life. Dr. Bunmi Olatunji, director of the Emotion and Anxiety Research Lab at Vanderbilt University, discusses the emotions that drive anxiety disorders, how to treat them effectively, and how people can recognize the difference between feeling anxious and an anxiety disorder – and know when it’s time to seek help. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More than 20 percent of U.S. adults suffer from some form of chronic pain. For many, effective treatment remains elusive, with medications and even surgeries giving little in the way of relief. But in recent years, psychologists’ research has begun to suggest that at least for some people, the answer to chronic pain may come not from healing the body but from treating the mind. Dr. Tor Wager, of Dartmouth University, discusses the relationship among our thoughts, feelings and beliefs about pain and the actual physical pain that we feel, what pain looks like in the brain, and how new research findings are leading to effective new treatments for pain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many people around the world have lost their sense of smell this past year due to COVID-19. Before the pandemic, scientists had already begun to gain a deeper understanding of how sophisticated our sense of smell is and how it is intertwined with our mental and physical health. Now, the pandemic is giving that research new urgency. Pamela Dalton, PhD, of the Monell Chemical Senses Center, discusses what we know about how our sense of smell works, the connections between smell, emotions and memory, how a rapid smell test could improve COVID-19 screening, how she developed the “world’s worst smell,” and more. Links Pamela Dalton, PhD Monell Chemical Senses Center Music Electronic Ambient Loop by tyops via Freesound.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For people with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory, or HSAM, every day is memorable. Ask them what they were doing on this date 10 years ago, and they’ll be able to tell you. Markie Pasternak, one of the youngest people identified with HSAM, and Michael Yassa, PhD, director of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California Irvine, talk about what it’s like to have this ability, what we know about how the brains of people with HSAM store and retrieve this vast amount of autobiographical information, and what studying this unique ability can teach us more generally about how memory works. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just in time for toy-buying season, Dr. Barry Kudrowitz, a toy designer and professor of product design at the University of Minnesota, and Dr. Doris Bergen, a professor emerita of educational psychology at Miami University in Ohio, discuss the psychology of toys. What makes something a good toy? Why do some toys stand the test of time while others fizzle out after one season? How has technology changed the way kids play with toys? Does gender affect kids’ toy choices? And do we ever grow out of toys? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For most people lucky enough to live a long life, aging comes with some cognitive decline. But memory loss isn’t inevitable. Some people -- “SuperAgers” -- have memory abilities that remain intact into their 80s, 90s and even beyond. Emily Rogalski, PhD, head of the SuperAger study at Northwestern University, talks about what sets these SuperAgers apart, how their brains differ from the brains of people who age in a more typical way, and what might we learn from studying SuperAgers that could, potentially, help the rest of us to age better. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Does shopping bring you joy? Or do you feel a bit of pain and regret every time you have to make a purchase? Many of us will be shopping for gifts in the upcoming weeks -- whether we enjoy it or not. Scott Rick, PhD, of the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, discusses how our emotions drive our buying behaviors, why some people spend money so easily while others find it so difficult, whether “retail therapy” actually works and why Black Friday sales are so irresistible. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The role that animals can play in improving people’s mental health has garnered increased attention in recent years -- from service dogs for PTSD to emotional support animals on planes to therapy dogs in offices. Dr. Maggie O’Haire, a psychologist at the Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine, discusses animal-assisted interventions for veterans with PTSD and children with autism, what science has to say about the human-animal bond, the difference between service animals, therapy animals and emotional support animals, whether regular household pets may also affect our health and well-being – and why we all enjoy cat videos so much. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices