Psychology in Everyday Life: The Psych Files

We often like it when things are explained to us clearly, but would you believe that sometimes it's better if you're just down-right confused? You could actually learn more if at some point in the learning process you feel like you don't know what's going on.  In part 2 of my interview with researcher and professor Jeremiah Sullins, we talk about much more you could learn if you spend a little time being absolutely perplexed at what's going on.  You may have heard of this as "desirable difficulties", well here we dig in and find out when it's good for teachers (and students) when everything is not completely clear.

Why do you vote the way you do? Have you read through all the various candidates position statements, or do you just kinda go with your "gut"? Jeremiah Sullins, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Harding University has looked at this question in great depth and he's found some really interesting answers to this question.  I think you'll really enjoy hearing about his research into your voting behavior.

In a previous episode I talked about the kinds of dynamics that can occur in groups (social loafing, diffusion of responsibility) that can make them ineffective learning experiences as well as just not fun. In this episode I interview Dr. Karen Christian who has watched how many study groups in action and she has uncovered quite a few things that study groups need to do differently so that everybody actually learns and gets ready for an upcoming test. She's got some very useful suggestions for teachers and students.

How do you "apply a little psychology" to tough jobs like building an online community and to creating a product that people will want to use frequently? In part 2 of my interview with author and Feverbee founder Richard Millington we talk about two key theories from psychology: self-determination theory and Robert Cialdini's persuasion techniques.  I think you'll find these real world examples very practical.

What do you do with a background in psychology? A lot of things. How about running an online community? I found Richard Millington, founder of Feverbee, talking about how he applies psychology to his business of helping organizations build strong, active online communities. As you've probably seen in your travels about the web, there are a lot of communities (such as those on Facebook) and sometimes you join them because you're interested in the person or the product the company sells. Then what happens? A lot to times nothing because that "community" isn't really a community. It's just a Facebook page that an employee created because he/she felt they "had to" because everyone else is doing it, but there's no actual discussion going on. What's an online community supposed to do? It's supposed to be interesting and helpful to its members. A community is supposed to "connect like minded people" and maybe even get them excited about a product and perhaps even, in the best case scenario, communities get their members to be so excited about the cause or the product that some of them become "evangelists" - real fans who spread the word. But how do you make this happen? What can you do to make a community active? Let's hear how Richard Millington effectively uses a little psychology in his work as a community builder.

Is it possible that some people who we think are mentally ill are actually victims of demonic possession?  One psychiatrist says yes.  Another psychiatrist says no - believing this is true is a matter of not carefully thinking about what you see and hear from others.  In this episode I break down the claims made by Richard Gallagher and a counterpoint to Gallagher which was written by Steven Novella.  Along the way we'll learn about logical fallacies such as the "argument for incredulity" and the "argument of ignorance".  I think you'll find this fascinating and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

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 probably using incorrectly.

Cell phones: they're here and they're not going away. So now it's time to "stop worrying and learn to love them". If you're upset about how addicted teens are to their phones I'll give you a few ideas that, hopefully, will make you feel better. After all, cellphones aren't going away. Quite the opposite. They're only going to get more powerful and more ubiquitous. The "pull" of the phone is irresistible. In this follow-up to episode 258 I want to talk about how adults and parents can feel less distressed by a teen's behavior. I hope the ideas in this episode help. How can we feel better about something (cell phone use) we can't do a whole lot about?

What is change blindness? How could you miss some of the most obvious things that change right in front of you? Millions of people watch a video of kids playing basketball and they miss the fact that a gorilla walks right through the scene.  A gorilla?  And people missed it?  Yup.  We often miss lots of things that happen right in front of us because our attention spans work in strange ways.  And because what happened isn't what we expected to happen. Let's learn about change blindness.

Why do we find it so hard to put down our phones? I'll give you 5 reasons drawn directly from psychological theories on how we learn, how teenagers are strongly affected by reward and how we are all drawn in by mystery.  There is of course no easy answer for how to get teens to put down their phones but I'll share what I'm doing with my teenagers.