Psychology in Everyday Life: The Psych Files

How can we use a little psychology to get you to slow down when you’re driving? You’d be surprised. Very often road signs like “Slow” or a posted speed limit of, say 20 mph does not work. Drivers go …

Here’s a new piece of weight-loss advice: eat on a crinkly plate! Um…sounds weird. It is kinda, but we’ll explore why this might be a good bit of advice. We’ll also take a minute and a half sound byt…

How can waiters increase their tips? Would you believe psychologists have devoted a great deal of research to this question? We've looked at the effect of smiley faces, touching, crouching, telling j…

Fitness tracking devices are getting smarter. They're going to have to get a lot smarter if they are going to be powerful tools in your quest to be fit. But how much more "smart" do we really want t…

Passengers on an airplane spring to action when a stewardess needs help – but a neighborhood in New York City does very little when a woman is attacked. What’s different ? How can we take what we lea…

In part 2 of my interview with Adele Faber, co-author along with Elaine Mazlish of “How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk” we talk about what do do when you’ve got nothing left…

Are you familiar with Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish‘s classic book “How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk“? You should be. It’s not just for parents. The ideas in this book an…

Why does conflict emerge as it did in Baltimore among the police and the African-American community? Is it caused by poor parenting? Poverty? Joblessness? I provide a psychological perspective on the…

Interested in Music Therapy? Music therapy, which is often used with children with autism, can also be used in the classroom to help children learn patterns. In this interview music therapist Kamile …

What can we do to end bullying against gays? There is a shocking increase in the number of young homosexuals who are commit suicide. Many anti-bullying programs don't work and in this episode I talk …

Have you used Siri, Hey Google, or Alexa? These voice-enabled digital assistants are pretty cool and getting smarter, but why do some of them sound more like a "person" than others? What is it about …

What if you could swap bodies with someone else? What would it be like to be someone of the opposite sex? A different race? We’re getting darn close to being able to do that with new techniques like …

Why does it seem that males in many cultures have to prove their manhood? Do women have to prove their womanhood? Why is this and what happens when men feel like they are less than a man? In this rev…

What do you reveal about yourself in the way you use the smallest and seemingly most insignificant words you use every minute? That's the focus of Dr. James Pennebaker's fascinating book and one of t…

What can we learn from an old, dusty book I found in the basement? Well, if that book is about gender role stereotypes then there's a lot of things to uncover that explain why boys and girls act the …

This is part 2 of my interview with Michael Pipich, author of the book, Owning Bipolar. In this part of the interview Michael discusses his therapeutic approach to treating Bipolar Disorder. If you h…

What do psychologists really think about your dreams – do they have meaning? In this episode I talk about what psychologists think today about dreams. You probably know that Freud thought that dreams…

Alright, let’s all admit it – we talk to our pets in that funny pet voice. “Who’s a good dog?” Well, there’s been a lot of research on your use of this voice to talk to your dog as well how you talk …