Explore every episode of the podcast Speaking of Psychology
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| How to handle health anxiety, with Karen Lynn Cassiday, PhD | 28 Aug 2024 | 00:39:17 | |
For those with health anxiety, worrying about sickness can be a constant struggle that can harm their mental health, relationships and even physical health. Karen Lynn Cassiday, PhD, author of the book “Freedom from Health Anxiety,” talks about how to recognize health anxiety (once known as hypochondria), why the internet and “Dr. Google” can make health anxiety worse, and what to do if you or someone you love struggles with health anxiety. | |||
| Job therapy and toxic coworkers, with Tessa West, PhD | 21 Aug 2024 | 00:34:20 | |
Are you and your job just not clicking anymore? New York University psychology professor Tessa West, PhD, author of “Job Therapy: Finding Work that Works for You,” talks about the most common sources of job dissastisfaction, how you can figure out why you’re unhappy at work and find a job that’s a better fit, how to handle -- or avoid -- toxic coworkers, and the importance of good communication at work. | |||
| Mental health in a warming world, with Kim Meidenbauer, PhD, and Amruta Nori-Sarma, PhD | 19 Jun 2024 | 00:39:26 | |
Last year -- 2023 -- was the world’s warmest on record, and 2024 could bring another record-shattering summer. Psychologist Kim Meidenbauer, PhD, and public health researcher Amruta Nori-Sarma, PhD, discuss how heat affects people’s mental health, emotions and even cognitive abilities; the link between heat, violence and aggression; who is most vulnerable to the effects of extreme heat; and what policy makers could be doing to mitigate its effects. | |||
| The psychology of political messaging, with Drew Westen, PhD | 28 Sep 2022 | 00:41:42 | |
Psychologists’ research has found that it’s not the nuances of policy debates that drive voter behavior but instead how voters feel about candidates and political parties -- and whom they trust to share their values. Drew Westen, PhD, of Emory University, talks about how emotions drive our political behavior, what makes for an effective political speech or ad campaign, and what role political messaging may be playing in shaping our increasingly polarized public discourse.
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| Reading minds using brain scans, with Kenneth Norman, PhD | 21 Sep 2022 | 00:40:56 | |
The idea of a machine that can read your thoughts sounds more like science fiction than actual science. But in recent years, it’s come closer to reality. Kenneth Norman, PhD, of Princeton University, talks about how scientists decode thoughts from patterns of brain activity, what we can learn about thinking, learning and memory from this research, how it could be useful in mental health treatment, and more.
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| How the need to belong drives human behavior, with Geoffrey L. Cohen, PhD | 14 Sep 2022 | 00:32:58 | |
The desire to belong is a fundamental part of human nature. Geoffrey Cohen, PhD, of Stanford University, talks about how feeling like an outsider can harm us; why threats to belonging drive problems as varied as achievement gaps and political polarization; and how to boost people’s sense of belonging, especially among those most at risk of feeling like outsiders. | |||
| How to spend your time more wisely, with Cassie Holmes, PhD | 07 Sep 2022 | 00:41:01 | |
When you feel time-poor, endless hours of free time might sound like the ultimate luxury. But psychologists’ research suggests that it’s not simply the amount of time that you have, but how you spend it, that determines your happiness. Cassie Holmes, PhD, discusses whether there’s an ideal amount of free time, how to increase your sense of “time affluence” and how tracking your time can help you live a happier life. Links Cassie Holmes, PhD Speaking of Psychology Home Page | |||
| How job loss and economic stress affect workers and their families, with Anna Gassman-Pines, PhD | 31 Aug 2022 | 00:30:04 | |
For many Americans, the past two-and-a-half years have been a time of economic turmoil. Anna Gassman-Pines, PhD, of Duke University, talks about how job loss, unstable work schedules and other hardships affect workers, their families and even entire communities, and about how working families – particularly low-wage workers – fared through the pandemic. | |||
| Understanding the teenage brain, with Eva Telzer, PhD | 24 Aug 2022 | 00:30:46 | |
There’s a common stereotype is that teenagers’ brains are immature and underdeveloped, and that teens are “hard-wired” to take unwise risks and cave to peer pressure. But psychologists’ research suggests these negative stereotypes are unfounded and that the teen years are a time opportunity and growth as well as risk. Eva Telzer, PhD, explains why teens take more risks and why that risk-taking is sometimes beneficial, why parents have more influence than they think, and how social media and other technology use may be affecting teens’ behavior and development. Links Eva Telzer, PhD Speaking of Psychology Home Page | |||
| Can you be addicted to food? With Ashley Gearhardt, PhD | 17 Aug 2022 | 00:37:36 | |
We live in a nation awash with cheap, easy-to-get calories, mostly from highly processed convenience foods. Now, some researchers argue that these foods may actually be addictive – just like cigarettes or alcohol. Ashley Gearhardt, PhD, of the University of Michigan, talks about why highly processed foods may trigger addiction, the difference between addiction and simply liking to indulge in treats, who is most at risk for food addiction, and more. | |||
| Encore - How to overcome feeling like an imposter, with Lisa Orbé-Austin, PhD, and Kevin Cokley, PhD | 10 Aug 2022 | 00:34:25 | |
Do you ever feel like a phony? Like you’re not really qualified for the job you’re doing, despite your achievements? Those are signs of the impostor phenomenon, also called impostor syndrome. Dr. Lisa Orbé-Austin, a counseling psychologist and career coach in New York City, and Dr. Kevin Cokley, a University of Texas at Austin psychology professor who studies the impostor phenomenon among ethnic minority students, discuss where impostor feelings come from, the repercussions they can have in people’s lives, and what you can do to address imposter feelings. | |||
| Encore - Tasty words, colorful sounds - How people with synesthesia experience the world, with Julia Simner, PhD | 03 Aug 2022 | 00:38:53 | |
More than 4% of people have some form of synesthesia, a neurological condition that causes senses to link and merge. People with synesthesia may taste words, hear colors, or see calendar dates arrayed in physical space. Dr. Julia Simner, a professor of neuropsychology at the University of Sussex in the U.K., discusses the many forms of synesthesia, how synesthetes experience the world, and what scientists have learned from brain imaging studies about synesthesia. She also discusses her research on other sensory differences such as misophonia, an extreme aversion to specific sounds. | |||
| What is borderline personality disorder? With Carla Sharp, PhD | 27 Jul 2022 | 00:34:17 | |
Borderline personality disorder is one of the most frequently diagnosed personality disorders, and one of the most misunderstood. Carla Sharp, PhD, of the University of Houston, discusses how BPD is diagnosed, defined and treated, how family members can help children and adults with BPD, and how the disorder fits in with researchers’ evolving understanding of personality disorders in general.
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| How to motivate yourself and others, with Wendy Grolnick, PhD, and Frank Worrell, PhD | 12 Jun 2024 | 00:36:58 | |
Why can’t I get myself to run that 5K? Why isn’t my child getting better grades? We all have things that we struggle to accomplish – or that we struggle to get someone else to accomplish. Frank Worrell, PhD, and Wendy Grolnick, PhD, co-authors of “Motivation Myth Busters: Science-based Strategies to Boost Motivation in Yourself and Others,” discuss how our misconceptions about motivation get in the way of reaching our goals, why there’s no such thing as an “unmotivated” person, and the merits and drawbacks of strategies like rewards, competition and praise. | |||
| The truth about why kids lie, with Victoria Talwar, PhD | 20 Jul 2022 | 00:40:34 | |
Most parents want to raise their children to be honest adults, so the first time that they catch their child in a lie it may come as an unpleasant surprise. But psychologists’ research has found that lying is a normal part of childhood. In fact, it’s a developmental milestone. Victoria Talwar, PhD, of McGill University, talks about why kids lie, how lying is tied to cognitive development, how children understand the morality of lying (including the “gray areas” of keeping secrets and tattling), and how parents can encourage truth-telling and honesty in their children.
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| Can we unlearn implicit biases? With Mahzarin Banaji, PhD | 13 Jul 2022 | 00:51:14 | |
The idea that people have biases that operate below the level of conscious thought is uncomfortable. But decades of research have found that many people who would never consciously agree with prejudiced statements against Black people, LGBTQ people or women can nonetheless harbor implicit biases toward these groups and others. Mahzarin Banaji, PhD, one of the pioneers of implicit bias research, talks about where implicit biases come from, the difference between implicit bias and prejudice, and which biases have lessened – and which have not – in recent years. Links Mahzarin Banaji, PhD Speaking of Psychology Home Page
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| Perfectionism: When good is never good enough, with Gordon Flett, PhD, and Bonnie Zucker, PsyD | 06 Jul 2022 | 00:32:58 | |
Perfectionism might seem like a minor hurdle to overcome – or even a welcome personality trait. But perfectionism is different from simply striving for excellence and perfectionistic people are at higher risk for anxiety, depression and other mental health disorders. Perfectionism researcher Gordon Flett, PhD, and clinical psychologist Bonnie Zucker, PsyD, discuss where perfectionism comes from, why it’s an increasing problem, how it affects people’s mental and physical health and how to treat it. Links | |||
| Revealing the Hidden Brain, with Shankar Vedantam | 29 Jun 2022 | 00:40:09 | |
How much insight do people have into why they behave the way they do? Science journalist Shankar Vedantam, host of the Hidden Brain podcast and author of “Useful Delusions: The Power and Paradox of the Self-Deceiving Brain,” talks about why he is fascinated by the paradoxes of human behavior, what it takes to bring the popular podcast to life, and why it’s important to show the public the challenges as well as the triumphs of science.
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| Why can some people speak dozens of languages? with Ev Fedorenko, PhD | 22 Jun 2022 | 00:40:06 | |
For those of us who speak only one language, the idea of learning twenty or thirty sounds impossible. But there are “hyperpolyglots” who have managed this remarkable feat. Evelina Fedorenko, PhD, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, discusses what sets polyglots apart and what scientists might learn from studying them. She also discusses how language is processed in the brain, why it’s so much easier for kids to learn languages than adults, the relationship between language and thought and how we can think without language, and more. Sponsor | |||
| Abortion and mental health, with Antonia Biggs, PhD | 15 Jun 2022 | 00:26:54 | |
Dozens of states are poised to outlaw or dramatically restrict abortion if the Supreme Court overturns its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Antonia Biggs, PhD, a social psychologist at the University of California San Francisco, talks about the results of the Turnaway Study, which examined how receiving an abortion – or being denied one – affects mental health and well-being, the effects of laws that limit access to abortion, and what a post-Roe future might look like. Links Antonia Biggs, PhD | |||
| How living with secrets can harm you, with Michael Slepian, PhD | 08 Jun 2022 | 00:24:55 | |
We all keep secrets – on average, people have about 13 secrets at any one time, five of which they have never told another person. Psychologist Michael Slepian, PhD, of Columbia Business School, talks about what types of secrets people keep, why keeping a secret bottled up inside can harm us, how keeping secrets -- or sharing them -- affects people’s relationships with each other, how we decide whom we can trust with our secrets, and whether other people can tell when we’re holding something back. | |||
| Can an app improve your health? With Gary Bennett, PhD | 01 Jun 2022 | 00:38:46 | |
Digital interventions that promise to help you achieve your health and fitness goals are everywhere. But do these apps work and are they a useful public health tool? Gary Bennett, PhD, director of the Duke University Global Digital Health Science Center, discusses how digital interventions can help address obesity and other public health challenges, how to find apps that are effective and backed by research, the challenge of weight stigma, and more. Sponsors | |||
| Racism, racial discrimination and mental health, with Riana Elyse Anderson, PhD | 25 May 2022 | 00:39:14 | |
The past two years have taken a heavy toll on the health, mental health and well-being of people of color, who have suffered disproportionately from the COVID-19 pandemic while also facing what some call a second pandemic of racism. Riana Elyse Anderson, PhD, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, discusses why racism is like a virus and what can be done to help people deal with race-based traumatic stress and to protect children against its harmful effects. Riana Elyse Anderson, PhD | |||
| What is dissociative identity disorder? With Bethany Brand, PhD | 18 May 2022 | 00:30:01 | |
Dissociative identity disorder – which many people recognize by its former name, multiple personality disorder – is one of Hollywood’s favorite psychology-related topics, with a decades-long history of movie and TV portrayals, most recently in this spring’s “Moon Knight.” But in real life, DID does not look like it does on the screen. Bethany Brand, PhD, of Towson University, discusses why it is more subtle than TV and movie portrayals would lead viewers to believe, what is happening in the brains of patients who experience it and what treatments are available. | |||
| The benefits of solitude, with Thuy-vy Nguyen, PhD, and Netta Weinstein, PhD | 05 Jun 2024 | 00:45:31 | |
The average American adult spends up to one-third of their waking hours alone. Psychologists are exploring how those hours spent on our own affect us – including the potential benefits, as well as the challenges, of solitude. Thuy-vy Nguyen, PhD, and Netta Weinstein, PhD, discuss the difference between solitude and loneliness, how solitude affects our emotions and stress levels, why some people crave solitude more than others, and why the stigma against solitude can make us uncomfortable with being alone. | |||
| Are we in a ‘loneliness pandemic’? With Louise Hawkley, PhD | 11 May 2022 | 00:37:03 | |
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic scrambled our social connections, Americans were worried about an epidemic of loneliness. Louise Hawkley, PhD, principal research scientist at NORC at the University of Chicago, talks about the difference between being alone and being lonely, how loneliness can harm our health, whether we really are lonelier than ever these days, and how to identify and address the root causes of loneliness. | |||
| Is technology killing empathy? With Sherry Turkle, PhD | 04 May 2022 | 00:43:18 | |
Over the past couple of decades, our devices have become our constant companions. More and more, we live in a digital, virtual world. Dr. Sherry Turkle, MIT professor and founding director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, discusses how digital communication has affected our ability to talk to each other, how conversation itself changed in the digital age, why she thinks social media is an “anti-empathy machine” and her advice on how to reclaim space for conversation in our lives. | |||
| What psychology has to say about art, with Ellen Winner, PhD | 27 Apr 2022 | 00:41:48 | |
Art is universal – there has never been a human society without it. But we don’t always agree on what makes for good art, or even what makes something art at all. Ellen Winner, PhD, of Boston College, talks about how psychology can help answer the question “What is art?” why even non-experts can tell the difference between a child’s painting and an abstract masterpiece, why art forgeries bother us so much, the purpose of arts education, and more. | |||
| How exercise benefits the brain, with Jenny Etnier, PhD | 20 Apr 2022 | 00:30:49 | |
Most people realize that being sedentary is bad for your physical health. But exercise – or the lack of it – can affect our cognitive health as well. Jenny Etnier, PhD, of the University of North Carolina Greensboro, discusses how exercise improves memory, the cognitive benefits of physical activity, the importance of youth sports and the downside of hyper-competitive youth sports culture. Jenny Entier, PhD Sponsor: | |||
| Surviving the trauma of war in Ukraine, with Laura Murray, PhD | 13 Apr 2022 | 00:36:07 | |
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, more than 4 million Ukrainians have had to flee the country as refugees, more than 6 million others have been internally displaced, and tens of millions more have lived through shelling and other traumas. Laura Murray, PhD, of the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, talks about mental health care during war and other disasters, what providers in Ukraine are experiencing on the ground, and what we know about the mental health effects of living through war. Sponsor: | |||
| How to keep stress from harming your health, with George Slavich, PhD | 06 Apr 2022 | 00:47:13 | |
The American Psychological Association’s most recent Stress in America survey found record high levels of stress among Americans of all ages. Dr. George Slavich, director of the UCLA Laboratory for Stress Assessment and Research, discusses how stress affects our brain, body and immune system, why it’s important to measure a person’s lifetime exposure to stress, and strategies to manage stress and minimize its negative effects on your health. | |||
| How grieving changes the brain, with Mary-Frances O’Connor, PhD | 30 Mar 2022 | 00:33:56 | |
Few of us will make it through life without losing someone we love. Mary-Frances O’Connor, PhD, of the University of Arizona, discusses howneuroscience can help us to better understand grief and resilience after loss, why grief is different from depression, effective therapy for grief, whether it’s possible to experience grief over the death of a celebrity, and how to support people when they are grieving. | |||
| How to Keep Anger from Getting the Best of You with Howard Kassinove, PhD, and Raymond “Chip” Tafrate, PhD | 23 Mar 2022 | 00:42:08 | |
Anger is a normal human emotion, a natural reaction when you feel that something or someone has done you wrong. But anger can also turn violent and dangerous, can ruin relationships and can interfere with our health and happiness. Howard Kassinove, PhD, of Hofstra University, and Raymond “Chip” Tafrate, PhD, of Central Connecticut State University, discuss the difference between healthy and harmful anger, strategies to cope with anger, and why “primal screams,” rage rooms and other forms of anger catharsis can do more harm than good. Howard Kassinove, PhD | |||
| Why psychopathy is more common than you think, with Abigail Marsh, PhD | 16 Mar 2022 | 00:42:56 | |
Most of us think we know what a psychopath looks like. The word brings to mind images of horror movies and criminals. But psychopathy is far more common than most people realize, and actually hard to recognize in other people. Abigail Marsh, PhD, of Georgetown University, discusses what researchers have learned about the causes of psychopathy and effective treatments for it, how to recognize psychopathy in those around you, and her work exploring the emotional processes and the brain differences that underlie both psychopathy and its opposite, extraordinary altruism. | |||
| Ambiguous loss and the “myth of closure,” with Pauline Boss, PhD | 09 Mar 2022 | 00:29:08 | |
March 11 marks two years since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. With another variant waning, many people are hoping, yet again, to close the book on COVID and move on. But what if there’s a different way to think about life after loss? Pauline Boss, PhD, author of “The Myth of Closure: Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic and Change,” talks about what we have learned about grief, resilience and moving on after two years of pandemic life. | |||
| Which countries are happiest and why? With Lara Aknin, PhD | 29 May 2024 | 00:31:31 | |
The 2024 World Happiness Report, which ranks the happiness levels of countries around the world, found that young Americans are less happy than their peers in many other countries. Psychology professor Lara Aknin, PhD, an editor of the report, talks about how the report defines happiness, why young people’s happiness levels may have dropped in the U.S, what drives happiness, and why being generous makes people happy – even when they don’t have much to spare. | |||
| How our siblings influence our lives, with Laurie Kramer, PhD, and Megan Gilligan, PhD | 02 Mar 2022 | 00:40:19 | |
Our brothers and sisters are our first friends and first rivals, and the relationships that we have with our siblings are often the longest lasting relationships of our lives. Laurie Kramer, PhD, of Northeastern University, and Megan Gilligan, PhD, of Iowa State University, talk about how our siblings influence our lives from childhood through adulthood, how parents can help foster close relationships among their children, and what people can do in adulthood to maintain and improve relationships with their own siblings. | |||
| Poker, con artists and the psychology of risk and deception, with Maria Konnikova, PhD | 23 Feb 2022 | 00:41:52 | |
Why do intelligent people give money to self-proclaimed psychics or get sucked into Ponzi schemes? Why are most of us so bad at judging risk? Journalist, psychologist and professional poker player Maria Konnikova, PhD, author of the “The Biggest Bluff” and “The Confidence Game,” talks about why anyone can fall for a con, the psychology of risk, and how her knowledge of psychology did—and didn’t—help her at the poker table. | |||
| Fighting the stigma of mental illness, with Patrick Corrigan, PsyD | 16 Feb 2022 | 00:31:58 | |
Despite how common mental illness is, people with mental illness often keep their diagnosis a closely guarded secret in the face of widespread stigma and discrimination. Patrick Corrigan, PhD, editor of APA’s journal Stigma and Health, discusses where this stigma comes from, how it affects people’s lives, why it’s important for those with mental illness to share their stories, and whether or not celebrities’ new openness about mental health is decreasing stigma. | |||
| What makes love last? With Arthur Aron, PhD | 09 Feb 2022 | 00:35:26 | |
Most of us expect the intensity of new love to fade over time. But some couples remain deeply in love for the long haul, even after years or decades together. What sets those relationships apart? Are some couples just lucky? Or are there things that you can do to sustain love, or rekindle it, in any long-term relationship? Dr. Arthur Aron, of Stonybrook University, discusses what the science says about the secrets of long-term love. | |||
| Why we choose to suffer, with Paul Bloom, PhD | 02 Feb 2022 | 00:20:36 | |
Why do people like to watch scary movies or listen to sad songs? We do we run marathons and raise children, even though both of those pursuits come with struggle and pain? Dr. Paul Bloom discusses why suffering is linked to meaning in life, the connection between pleasure and pain, and the difference between chosen and unchosen suffering.
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| Why is it so hard for adults to make friends? With Maris Franco, PhD | 26 Jan 2022 | 00:29:35 | |
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. | |||
| The people who never forget a face, with Josh Davis, PhD, and Kelly Desborough | 19 Jan 2022 | 00:33:03 | |
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. | |||
| What is anxiety and how can we treat it effectively? With Bunmi Olatunji, PhD | 12 Jan 2022 | 00:20:46 | |
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. | |||
| Healing pain by treating the mind, with Tor Wager, PhD | 05 Jan 2022 | 00:36:22 | |
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. | |||
| Encore - Unlocking the mysteries of smell, our most underappreciated sense, with Pamela Dalton, PhD | 29 Dec 2021 | 00:34:11 | |
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 | |||
| Choosing to be child free, with Jennifer Watling Neal, PhD | 22 May 2024 | 00:31:23 | |
A growing number of adults in the U.S. are choosing not to have children. Jenna Watling Neal, PhD, of Michigan State University, talks about her research that’s found 1 in 5 adults are child free, why people are choosing not to have kids, the stigma child-free adults face, whether people who decide not to have kids early in life usually stick with that choice, and how the prevalence of child-free adults in the U.S. compares with other countries. | |||
| Encore - What is it like to remember every day of your life, with Michael Yassa, PhD, and Markie Pasternak | 22 Dec 2021 | 00:39:34 | |
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. | |||
| Psychology takes toys seriously, with Barry Kudrowitz, PhD, and Doris Bergen, PhD | 15 Dec 2021 | 00:43:32 | |
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? | |||
| The secret to being a “SuperAger,” with Emily Rogalski, PhD | 08 Dec 2021 | 00:31:01 | |
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. | |||