Curious About...

What if your brain only has room for five close friends, and your spouse already takes up two of those seats? Evelina and Danny start with a Toy Story sing-along gone rogue and end up somewhere much more tender: why so many of us never learned how to actually be a good friend.

Both Evelina and Danny grew up in households where friendship wasn't exactly encouraged, immigrant families, protective instincts, and a whole lot of "go home straight after school." They get into how that shaped their adult friendships, why proximity matters less than effort, and the exact number of hours research says it takes to move from acquaintance to true close friend (spoiler: it's a lot more than you'd think). Danny gets vulnerable about ending a 20 year friendship, and Evelina wrap everything up with some things for listeners to try.

In this episode:

• The Harvard study that ran for 85 years and found the one thing that predicts happiness
• Why your dad brokering a friendship in the front yard might explain a lot
• The three ways friendships actually end (one of them you're probably doing right now)
• Danny's 20-year friendship breakup, and the "ugh" feeling that finally ended it
• The dinner table question Evelina asks her kids instead of "how was your day"
• Why "dormant volcano" friendships are easier to reignite than you'd expect

Sneaky science alert: Harvard's longest-running happiness study, Jeffrey Hall's 50/90/200-hour friendship research, the Mendelson and Gable friendship quality framework, and the 4:1 positivity ratio all make an appearance, sandwiched between a Toy Story impression and a full confession about "shame cheese."

Curious About… is hosted by psychologist Evelina Bereni and Broadway performer and counsellor Danny Beiruti.

How much money are you accidentally handing over to big banks and insurance companies every month? We get into the savings rate conversation that absolutely nobody wants to have, but spoiler: it doesn't have to feel depressing. In fact, we make a sport of it.

We start with an unexpected detour into animal intelligence, then land on the psychology of why we spend when we earn more. The real stuff: what happens when you ask your mortgage lender for a better rate, why your subscriptions are bleeding you dry, and how to think about "future you" without feeling deprived.

In this episode:

• Why we both became obsessed with spreadsheets (for different reasons)
• The immigration mentality nobody talks about anymore
• What your credit card company doesn't want you to know
• Three big money moves that actually work
• Why saving feels better when it's a game
• The government benefits you've probably missed

Sneaky science alert: Behavioural economics, customer inertia, lifestyle creep, and an unexpected lesson from a very strategic cow.

What if the way you handle money has nothing to do with maths, and everything to do with a story your family told you without ever meaning to?

In Part 1 of a two part money series, we dig into the money scripts they inherited and never chose and work through the four money belief patterns psychology has actually mapped (and figure out which one they both keep landing in). We take a rapid fire tour through money sayings like "money talks" and "put your money where your mouth is," and pick apart the famous $75K happiness study everyone still quotes. The back half turns into a ultra useful crash course on the FIRE movement, savings rates and how an ETF works, with a detour into the ethical headache Ev didn't see coming once SpaceX hit the stock market.

In this episode:

• The four money belief patterns researchers identified, and the one Evelina and Danny both landed in
• A rapid fire run through money sayings and where they actually came from (Ancient Greece makes an appearance)
• The famous $75K happiness plateau study everyone quotes, and the newer research that quietly demolished it
• A plain English breakdown of the FIRE movement, savings rates and how an ETF actually works
• Why SpaceX's record-breaking IPO put Danny in an unexpected ethical bind with his own super fund

Sneaky science alert: Klontz and colleagues' four money belief patterns, Kahneman and Deaton's famous $75K plateau, and the newer Killingsworth research that overturned it all make an appearance, wedged somewhere between a Mary Poppins reference and Ev's failed day trading career.

Ever cleaned your entire house the night before something important? Changed your sheets, watered the plants, watched just one more episode? You weren't being lazy. You might have been self-sabotaging, and the reason why is fascinating.

In their 10th episode, Evelina and Danny get into one of the most sneakily relatable topics yet: self-sabotage. They break down what it actually means, why it tends to show up right when things are going well, and how our brains can interpret success as a threat worth neutralising. Danny opens up about his procrastination patterns and what it took to actually receive compliments from an Emmy-winning actor and one of the original cast of Rent. Evelina shares why she put her ukulele down just as she was getting good, and what a 19th century chess prodigy reveals about the lengths we'll go to protect our egos.

In this episode:

• A chess grandmaster who gave himself a handicap before every game (and why Danny called it the most narcissistic thing he'd ever heard)
• Five self-sabotage scenarios scored 0-10, including the "mistake cluster," the excuse on the record, and the fight that appears out of nowhere when everything's going great
• Why self-sabotage is more likely when you're at your cognitive peak, not your lowest point
• The "upper limit problem" and why your brain treats unfamiliar success like a threat
• How household chaos in childhood can wire us to recreate dysfunction as adults
• Bridesmaids and Black Swan as accidental masterclasses in self-fulfilling prophecy
• WOOP: the research-backed alternative to manifesting that actually requires you to do something

Sneaky science alert: Ed Hirt's cognitive peak hypothesis, Gay Hendricks' upper limit problem, a meta-analysis linking childhood household chaos to adult procrastination, and the WOOP framework (Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan), all woven in between Danny's Cherry Lane Theater memory and a very relatable luteal phase confession.

Have you ever been told you're "too much"? Or wondered why you seem to feel everything at a higher volume than the people around you? This episode is for you.

We get into two things that turn out to be completely connected: the fact that humans have way more than five senses (yes, really), and the science behind what it actually means to be a highly sensitive person. Danny is, by his own admission, a man on a mission. He wants to blow up the idea that sensitivity is a weakness and rebuild it as exactly what the research says it is: a biological trait, a processing style, and in a lot of contexts, a superpower.

In this episode:

• Why you have somewhere between 10 and 100 senses
• What proprioception, interoception, and your vestibular sense actually are, and why they matter more than you'd expect
• The DOES framework: a practical way to understand sensory processing sensitivity in yourself or your kids
• Why being highly sensitive shows up in 20-30% of humans AND over 150 animal species (including a very relatable percentage of orchids)
• A live quiz, several aha moments, and a sequinned top that had to come off
• Why empathy as your baseline is a gift that also needs managing

Sneaky science alert: Elaine and Arthur Aron's 1997 research on sensory processing sensitivity, the serotonin allele, and the DOES framework all make an appearance, alongside a dog SPS questionnaire a quote about the limits of language that sent us both into a philosophical spiral.

Want to take the HSP test yourself? Find Elaine Aron's official Highly Sensitive Person self-test here: https://hsperson.com/test/highly-sensitive-test/

You spent thousands on that conference and can't remember a thing two weeks later. The problem is that nobody taught you how your brain actually works and retains information.

Evelina and Danny explore why people forget more than 70% of what they learn in 24 hours, and more importantly, what actually sticks. They break down the four types of learners, unpack the Feynman Technique, explain why sleep is essential for memory, and introduce Danny's "Rule of the First Time".

In this episode:

• The Ebbinghaus forgetting curve (why 70%+ disappears in 24 hours)
• The four learner types and which ones actually remember
• Why sleep restriction harms memory formation
• The Feynman Technique and how it reveals gaps in understanding
• Danny's "Rule of the First Time" - no assumed knowledge, ever
• Why spaced learning beats cramming
• A quiz on study methods with surprising answers

Sneaky science alert: Crowley and colleagues (2024), Ebbinghaus, the Feynman Technique, and Sepeda's spaced learning research - all sandwiched between boat safety trauma and Mary Poppins memes.

Curious About… is hosted by psychologist Evelina Bereni and Broadway performer and counsellor Danny Beiruti.

What's your primary Ick? Take the ICK QUIZ here: https://curiousaboutpodcast.com/resources-and-stuff

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Dating should be an open mind and an open heart, right? So why does one wrong word, one questionable outfit, or one terrible smell turn potential partners into absolute no-gos?

Evelina and Danny dive into "the ick" - that sudden, visceral aversion that makes you want to run. It's real, it's universal, and it might be sabotaging your dating life.

In this episode, Evelina and Danny unpack the psychology of disgust and decode five unexpected categories of ick. They get personal about their own deal-breakers, tackle why Gen Z is walking away from dates faster than ever, and interrogate the research showing that women experience icks more than men.

They also explore the "paradox of choice" on dating apps. Why endless options leave us paralysed and less likely to commit - and break down the biggest icks people report: negativity in bios, overly filtered photos, materialistic vibes, and low effort profiles.

In this episode:

• Why disgust is actually a protective mechanism that kept humans alive (and why it still matters)
• The difference between an ick, a turn-off, and a deal-breaker (they're not the same)
• Danny admits he was probably the ick: deep conversation and intense questions on first dates didn't land well
• Evelina's very specific aversion to Aldi dishwashing tablets and why she'll rewash an entire plate to avoid the smell
• The Jam Study: why having 24 choices makes you less likely to choose anything at all
• How to tell if your dating profile is screaming "negative energy" to potential matches
• A custom Curious Cats quiz to identify your primary ick and where it came from

Sneaky science alert: The Three Domains of Disgust Scale (Altunji et al., 2012) breaks down pathogen, sexual, and moral disgust—but Evelina adds behavioural, pattern, and presence icks to the mix, all while the hosts debate whether no-socks-with-loafers is truly a deal-breaker or just a fashion preference.

Curious About… is hosted by psychologist and enter-trainer Evelina Bereni and Broadway performer and counsellor Danny Beiruti.

You're late. Someone needs help. What do you do? Evelina and Danny explore why we're always rushing, and what happens to us when we are.

They dig into the gap between feeling busy and actually being productive, trading personal stories (a McDonald's moment that shouldn't have been a thing, Danny's risky on-stage confession, Evelina's morning spiral). There's research that hits different. There's a checklist you'll recognise yourself in. And there's a four-word mantra (borrowed from a fabulous EGM!) that might change how you move through your day.

In this episode:

• A famous study with an uncomfortable answer
• Why your brain can't do two things at once (even though it feels like it)
• What's actually making you impatient
• The antidote to a life of busyiness

Sneaky science alert: Attention spans, urgency bias, flow states, and one very uncomfortable research finding about good people making bad choices when rushed.

Curious About… is hosted by psychologist and keynote speaker Evelina Bereni and Broadway performer and counsellor Danny Beiruti.

Have you ever sat in a traffic jam for 45 minutes, finally crawled past the source, and found... nothing? Just open road. You are not imagining things, and it is not random. And the explanation is genuinely wild.

Evelina and Danny go deep on what traffic and queues do to us as humans. Why a stranger's car can feel like a personal attack, why tailgating sits at the top of the road rage research rankings, and why all that lane-switching you do on the freeway is not actually getting you there faster (the science on this is both infuriating and freeing).

In this episode:

• What MIT mathematicians discovered when they studied phantom traffic jams (hint: it involves a sandwich and a detonation wave)
• Being tailed for 10 minutes through the suburbs and what that says about fairness, control, and other people's "stuff"
• The status contest hiding inside your daily commute, and whether speeding up actually wins it
• Roundabout horror stories from Paris (no marked lanes, no rules, full Hunger Games)
• A "Would You Rather" game featuring impossible queue dilemmas
• Cognitive diffusion and urge surfing: two real techniques you can use next time someone cuts you off
• Why your feelings in traffic have a 90-second shelf life (and what to do with them in the meantime)

Sneaky science alert: MIT's jamiton wave research, cumulative stress threshold theory, a 2025 emotion regulation study, and RACV/NRMA road rage data all make cameos, all snuck in between a Pop Mart queue, a four-way stop rant, and a detailed breakdown of the Aldi checkout experience.

Have you ever stopped yourself from singing in front of someone? Or maybe you've watched a jaw-dropping live performance and quietly thought, "Welp, I could never." This episode is for you, and the science has some things to say about that.

Evelina and Danny go deep on the human voice - where our relationship to singing comes from, why it's genuinely one of the most cognitively complex things a human can do (harder than the violin, it turns out), and what's actually happening when your favourite artist sounds impossibly perfect live. Personal karaoke shame, a Lion King origin story, and a six-year-old performing at Biggera Waters Shopping Centre all make an appearance. So does a really inconvenient truth about auto-tune.

In this episode:

• Danny's journey from imitating his idols in his bedroom to swinging seven ensemble roles in the original Australian production of The Lion King
• Evelina's first singing discovery (courtesy of Mrs. Oxford, year four, and a lot of singing to herself in the corner)
• Why the "perfect" voices on live talent shows may not be what they seem and the YouTube channel pulling back the curtain
• Rolling Stone's top 10 greatest singers of all time, a pop quiz, and one very controversial omission (no Celine???)
• The age at which you stop discovering new music, and it's probably not when you think
• Whether singing is something you're born with or something you can learn
• Why singing together in a crowd might be the most human thing you can do right now

Sneaky science alert: A 2022 twin study breaks down the genetics vs environment debate on vocal ability, a 2017 study on congenital amusia explains the rare few who genuinely cannot pitch match, and research on oxytocin, lifespan, and live performance sneak in between Danny's Wiggles era and a very passionate defence of the vocal trinity.

PS: Our mics were doing weird things this episode, we're working on it!