This is Episode 34 of PsychCrunch, the podcast of the British Psychological Society's Research Digest, sponsored by Routledge Psychology.

Despite it being easier than ever to communicate, so many of us find it challenging to make new friends – especially as we get older. Opening up conversations with strangers can leave us feeling like a bother, and fizzle into nothing more than a one-off interaction. The loneliness this can create isn't just a passing sting, it can have ongoing impacts to both our mental and physical health. So, in this episode, Ginny Smith asks: just how do we make friends as adults?

To get to the bottom of this problem, Ginny speaks with our expert guests Dr. Marissa G. Franco (Professor, speaker, and the New York Times bestselling author of Platonic) and Dr Gillian Sandstrom (Senior Lecturer in the psychology of kindness at the University of Sussex). Together, they give their insights on why so many of us run into problems expanding our social circle, and share some practical advice on how to make more connections.

Episode Credits:Written and hosted by Ginny Smith.Mixing and audio editing by Jeff Knowler.Edited by Emma Barratt.

Want to know more about the psychology of friendship?Discover plenty more on the topic over on our website.

PsychCrunch is sponsored by Routledge PsychologyRoutledge Psychology is part of the Taylor & Francis Group, and publishing partner for the BPS Core Textbooks Series. Browse over 5 million articles at www.tandfonline.com, and related books at www.routledge.com.

Have you ever had the feeling that there was someone – or something – nearby? Perhaps you were in bed falling asleep when you suddenly became convinced that a person was standing next to you, even though you couldn't actually 'see' or 'hear' anyone at all. Or maybe you were out in the wilderness, with no-one for miles around, and couldn't shake the feeling that someone was following you.

In this episode, Dr Jon Sutton, editor of The Psychologist magazine, talks to Dr Ben Alderson-Day, Associate Professor at Durham University, about the phenomenon of the 'felt presence' – that often eerie sensation that someone is near us. Jon and Ben's wide-ranging discussion touches on everything from Shackleton's unusual experiences in Antarctica, to the frightening yet common phenomenon of sleep paralysis and the modern practice of 'tulpamancy'.

Read a transcript of the interview at The Psychologist

Ben's book will be released in March and is available to pre-order here

Presented and produced by Jon Sutton, with additional content from Matthew Warren.

Mixing and editing by Jeff Knowler.

PsychCrunch is sponsored by Routledge Psychology

Grief is a universal experience, but one which affects every individual differently. A grieving person might feel guilty, listless, frightened, or angry. And at a time when they most need support, the bereaved may find other people turning away from them, not really knowing how to talk to them about their feelings and the person they've lost. So how can we learn to better cope with grief in ourselves and in others?

In this episode, Ella Rhodes, journalist for The Psychologist, speaks to two experts who are working to help us understand how people process grief and what can be done to support those who are grieving. Our guests are Dr Mary-Frances O'Connor, Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Arizona and author of The Grieving Brain, and Jane Harris, psychotherapist and co-founder of The Good Grief Project.

Episode credits:

Presented and produced by Ella Rhodes. Script edits by Matthew Warren. Mixing and editing by Jeff Knowler. PsychCrunch theme music by Catherine Loveday and Jeff Knowler. Artwork by Tim Grimshaw.

Further resources

• More information about The Good Grief Project can be found at the project's website
• Check out Dr Mary-Frances O'Connor's website for more on her book The Grieving Brain, as well as a list of publications including those discussed in this episode.
• Last year, Jon Sutton interviewed Dr Mary-Frances O'Connor for The Psychologist
• Also in The Psychologist: Elaine Kasket talks to Bjørn Johnson about his film Memory Box: Echoes of 9/11, and discusses the themes of the film with Jane Harris.

PsychCrunch is sponsored by Routledge Psychology.

We've lived side-by-side with domestic cats for thousands of years, yet they maintain an aura of mystery and a reputation for aloofness and even outright disdain for humans. But are cats really so enigmatic – or are we only just beginning to understand them?

In this episode, Ella Rhodes, journalist for The Psychologist, speaks to two experts who are working to help us to understand cats. They discuss research on cat cognition and intelligence, chat about what we can do how to make our cats' lives happier, and even share some tips on how to train them. Our guests are Dr Kristyn Vitale, assistant professor of animal health and behaviour at Unity College, and Dr Zazie Todd, author of the Companion Animal Psychology blog and recent book Purr: The Science of Making Your Cat Happy.

Episode credits:

Presented and produced by Ella Rhodes. Script edits by Matthew Warren. Mixing and editing by Jeff Knowler. PsychCrunch theme music by Catherine Loveday and Jeff Knowler. Artwork by Tim Grimshaw.

Relevant research and writing from our guests includes:

Companion Animal Psychology: a blog written by Zazie Todd

Several articles by Kristyn Vitale and colleagues:

• Attachment bonds between domestic cats and humans
• The quality of being sociable: The influence of human attentional state, population, and human familiarity on domestic cat sociability
• What's inside your cat's head? A review of cat (Felis silvestris catus) cognition research past, present and future

From carefully avoiding cracks in the pavement to saluting every magpie that you meet, superstitious behaviour is really common. But why do we have superstitions? Where do they come from? And are they helpful or harmful?

To find out, our presenter Ginny Smith talks to Stuart Vyse, former professor of psychology at Connecticut College and author of Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition. Ginny also chats to Laramie Taylor, professor of communication at the University of California Davis, who explains how superstition and magical thinking is linked to being a fan of both fiction and sports.

Episode credits: Presented and produced by Ginny Smith. Script edits by Matthew Warren. Mixing and editing by Jeff Knowler. PsychCrunch theme music by Catherine Loveday and Jeff Knowler. Art work by Tim Grimshaw.

Relevant research and writing from our guests includes:

Magical thinking and fans of fictional texts and Sports Fans and Magical Thinking: How Supernatural Thinking Connects Fans to Teams, both by Laramie Taylor and discussed in the podcast.

Do Superstitious Rituals Work?, an article at Skeptical Inquirer in which Stuart Vyse discusses some of the work mentioned in this episode.

How Superstition Works, an extract from Vyse's book Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition, published at The Atlantic.

Why do people share false information? In this episode, our presenters Ginny Smith and Jon Sutton explore the psychology of misinformation. They hear about the factors that make people more or less likely to share misinformation, discuss strategies to correct false information, and learn how to talk to someone who is promoting conspiracy theories.

Our guests, in order of appearance, are Tom Buchanan, Professor of Psychology at the University of Westminster, and Briony Swire-Thompson, senior research scientist at Northeastern University's Network Science Institute.

Episode credits: Presented and produced by Ginny Smith, with additional reporting by Jon Sutton. Script edits by Matthew Warren. Mixing and editing by Jeff Knowler. PsychCrunch theme music by Catherine Loveday and Jeff Knowler. Art work by Tim Grimshaw.

Relevant research from our guests includes:

Why do people spread false information online? The effects of message and viewer characteristics on self-reported likelihood of sharing social media disinformation.

Spreading Disinformation on Facebook: Do Trust in Message Source, Risk Propensity, or Personality Affect the Organic Reach of "Fake News"?

Predictors of likelihood of sharing disinformation on social media 2019-2020

Correction format has a limited role when debunking misinformation

Backfire effects after correcting misinformation are strongly associated with reliability

Public Health and Online Misinformation: Challenges and Recommendations

Why do some songs get stuck in our heads? In this episode, our presenter Ginny Smith explores the psychology of earworms. Ginny hears about the possible evolutionary reasons for why we experience the phenomenon, learns what earworms can teach us about memory — and finds out how to get rid of them.

Our guests, in order of appearance, are Kelly Jakubowski, assistant professor of music psychology at Durham University; Petr Janata, professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis; and Michael K. Scullin, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor University.

Episode credits: Presented and produced by Ginny Smith. Mixing and editing by Jeff Knowler. PsychCrunch theme music by Catherine Loveday and Jeff Knowler. Art work by Tim Grimshaw.

Research from our guests includes:

Dissecting an Earworm: Melodic Features and Song Popularity Predict Involuntary Musical Imagery

Spontaneous mental replay of music improves memory for incidentally associated event knowledge.

Bedtime Music, Involuntary Musical Imagery, and Sleep

This is Episode 27 of PsychCrunch, the podcast from the British Psychological Society's Research Digest, sponsored by Routledge Psychology.

At Latitude Festival in Suffolk in July, The Psychologist Editor Dr Jon Sutton hosted a conversation in The Listening Post with Greta Defeyter, Professor of Developmental Psychology and founder and Director of the "Healthy Living" Lab at Northumbria University. An expert on food insecurity, social injustice, school feeding programmes and holiday hunger, Professor Defeyter considered why children go hungry, what we can do about it, and how her own experiences of poverty have shaped her.

Episode credits: Presented by Jon Sutton. Mixing and editing by Jeff Knowler. PsychCrunch theme music by Catherine Loveday and Jeff Knowler. Art work by Tim Grimshaw.

Thanks to Latitude Festival's arts and special events curator Kirsty Taylor. We hope to return with more from 'The Psychologist Presents…' in 2022. Tickets for next year's event are already on sale via http://latitudefestival.com

Background reading

Professor Defeyter has just published her new book, Holiday Hunger in the UK, co-authored by Michael A. Long and Paul B. Stretesky

The Psychologist also met Professor Defeyter as part of their special edition around the British Psychological Society policy theme of 'From poverty to flourishing'

Reports and transcripts from other appearances at Latitude Festival

This is Episode 26 of PsychCrunch, the podcast from the British Psychological Society's Research Digest, sponsored by Routledge Psychology.

What impact has the pandemic had on people's mental health? In this episode, our presenter Ginny Smith talks to researchers who have been conducting work throughout the pandemic to understand the toll that it has taken on our wellbeing. Ginny learns about the different factors that can make us more or less vulnerable to these effects, finds out how pregnant women have fared during this stressful time, and also hears about emerging data that finds links between the virus itself and mental health conditions.

Our guests, in order of appearance, are Dr Susanne Schweizer, Sir Henry Wellcome Fellow at the University of Cambridge, and Professor Paul Harrison from the University of Oxford.

Episode credits: Presented and produced by Ginny Smith. Script edits by Matthew Warren. Mixing and editing by Jeff Knowler. PsychCrunch theme music by Catherine Loveday and Jeff Knowler. Art work by Tim Grimshaw.

Background reading for this episode

• More information about the CORAL study is available on their website
• Paul Harrison's paper describing the link between Covid-19 infection and mental health conditions is available open access here. There is also a university press release about the work, and another related paper by the team

This is Episode 25 of PsychCrunch, the podcast from the British Psychological Society's Research Digest, sponsored by Routledge Psychology.

Are our personalities set in stone, or can we choose to change them? In this bonus episode, Matthew Warren talks to former Research Digest editor Christian Jarrett about his new book Be Who You Want: Unlocking the Science of Personality Change. Christian discusses the evidence-based methods you can use to alter your personality, whether you're an introvert who wants to become the life of the party, or you simply wish you were a little more open to new experiences. He also explains how our personalities evolve over the course of our lifespans, even when we're not consciously trying to change them, and ponders how they might be affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Be Who You Want: Unlocking the Science of Personality Change is out on May 18th in the United States and May 20th in the United Kingdom.

Episode credits: Presented by Matthew Warren. Mixing and editing by Jeff Knowler. PsychCrunch theme music by Catherine Loveday and Jeff Knowler. Art work by Tim Grimshaw.

Work discussed in this episode includes:

• Merely desiring to alter your personality is not enough, and may backfire unless you take concrete action to change
• Longest ever personality study finds no correlation between measures taken at age 14 and age 77
• Here's How Our Personality Changes As We Age

Other background reading

• A little discussed effect of therapy: it changes your personality
• Here's How Personality Changes In Young Adulthood Can Lead To Greater Career Satisfaction
• When Deciding How To Improve Our Personalities, Moral Character Is Not A Priority
• New insights into lifetime personality change from "meta-study" featuring 50,000 participants