Its time to hear from someone who has been diagnosed with autism what life is like.  Alex Lowery joins us to talk about growing up with autism - about the heightened sensations, the frustrations of not being understood and what has helped him get to where he is today.  At 20, Alex gives talks about his life.  I think you'll get some fascinating insights. 

In this interview with Paul Brodie, author of Secondhand Autism, we talk about what it is like to grow up in a family with an autistic individual.  As you can imagine, there are challenges, but ultimately there lessons to be learned about life. Listen to what Paul has to say about his brother Scott and to what it was like for Paul, his siblings and his parents - what they sacrificed and how they grew from it.  

How do you use psychology persuasion techniques to get people to contribute to your cause?  That's what I discuss in this episode of The Psych Files.  I'm trying to help my friend raise money and in doing so I employed a number of persuasion strategies to get people to help him out and I'm sure these ideas will be helpful to you as well.  We'll look at how Cialdini's ideas can be applied to fundraising and we'll look at other topics you may have studied in a psychology class: goal setting, bystander apathy, and the need to generate excitement in order to persuade people to part with their money.  I'll also look at the ethics of all this.  Is it okay to use these strategies on people?  When is it not okay?  Hopefully an interesting an useful episode up ahead.   

What are psychologists doing watching dancers?  They're trying to get a better understanding of how a dancer's emotions affect the way they move.  These researchers used some sophisticated equipment - including a motion capture apparatus - to analyze exactly how people moved while they were experiencing different emotional states.  I think you'll find what they did and what they found to be quite interesting.  If you're interested in dance and psychology you'll get a glimpse of how these two fields can be combined.  That's one of the things about psychology: you can apply it to so many areas of life, including dance.

Need to memorize Freud's stages for a test?  Here's a mnemonic that should do the trick.  This is the audio version of video episode 202 in which the founder of psychoanalysis gives you a mnemonic and explains the 5 stages for you.  Make sure to check out these other Psych Files episodes for psychology mnemonics: How to Memorize the Parts of the Brain, How to Memorize Erikson's Eight Stages, and How to Memorize Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development.  I love mnemonics here on The Psych Files so if you need to memorize anything else let me know!

Need to memorize Freud's stages for a test?  Here's a mnemonic that should do the trick.  In this brief video, the founder of psychoanalysis gives you a mnemonic and explains the 5 stages for you.  Make sure to check out these other Psych Files episodes for psychology mnemonics: How to Memorize the Parts of the Brain, How to Memorize Erikson's Eight Stages, and How to Memorize Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development.  I love mnemonics here on The Psych Files so if you need to memorize anything else let me know!

We know that many people have a tendency to blame victims even when something tragic and unexplainable happens to them.  But did you know how easily this blaming can be triggered?  If I were to describe a natural disaster and tell you about "mother nature's wrath" would you be more or less willing to help the victims?  I'll also talk about two common occurrences in adolescence: the imaginary audience and the personal fable.  Find out them in this episode of The Psych Files. 

Thank you so much for listening to The Psych Files  for the past 6 1/2 years.  In this episode I provide a little background on how the podcast started and what has happened as it grew over the years.  It just past 8 million downloads and I want to share a few thoughts on this with you.