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 har…

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 "pseu…

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 negativ…

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 loo…

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 …

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 l…

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 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 w…

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 p…

How did you get to be heterosexual? Homosexual? Bisexual? Was it nature or nurture (or both?). Were you born with a sexual orientation or did it develop as you grew? What role did your parents play? …

We finish off this series looking at your brain as you develop by examining what is happening in your brain as you age from adolescence to older adulthood. Also: an impersonated celebrity endorsement…

What is happening in your brain as you progress through life? In this episode we take a look at some of the changes that occur in your brain from birth to age 12. Be sure to listen to part 3 of this …

Having trouble raising your children? Join the crowd. There are lots of parenting books, but here's one you should know about: "Raising Children You Can Live With" by Jamie Raser. He has an approach …

Confused about expectancy theory? I’ll clear things up in this episode. It can be a little complicated but I’ll use the familiar example of losing weight to nail this idea down. I’ll also talk about …

How do we learn to act in what are called gender appropriate ways? How did you learn to act like a girl and then a woman? Or like a boy and then like a man? Did you experience either penis envy or wo…

How do the Rorschach, the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) and the House, Tree Person tests work? Do you reveal something about yourself when you tell stories about pictures or tell what you see in a…

Can we make learning as fun as it was when you were a child? We can. Listen to Dr. Eugene Geist as he explains the cognitive development theories of Jean Piaget and you'll understand why we are all g…

College teaching needs to change. This doesn't mean using a new fad technique. It doesn't mean dumbing anything down to get "today's students". It does mean that professors need to adopt more of the …